Most football matches are unable to go a full 90 minutes without the referee brandishing a yellow card. The threshold for a booking is not especially high in the modern game so it does not take too much for a player to find themselves getting an official telling off. Across the entire 2020-21 Premier League season, a yellow card was shown 1097 times, producing an average of 2.89 bookable offences per game.
For all the troublemakers out there though, there are many players who seldom get on the wrong side of the referee. For these, going a full season without a booking is a fairly easy feat but to go an entire career, well this is much more challenging. It can take just one perfectly innocent but mistimed tackle to warrant a card and with that, a clean record can be tarnished forever. Still, despite how fragile a card-less record can be, there have been players who have pulled it off as we will now find out.
The Introduction of Cards
Before we begin, it is important to point out that yellow (and red) cards were simply not part of football for many years. It may seem strange to us now that the game was missing such a fundamental aspect but cards only debuted, as a tester, at the 1968 Olympic Games. It was not then until 1976 that they made their way into the English Leagues and other leagues across the world were even slower to adopt them.
Prior to the introduction of cards, it was still possible for a player to be booked and sent off. In the case of the former, the absence of the card simply meant it was not as obvious who had entered the referee’s notebook. In one extreme example, Bobby Charlton did not realise he was cautioned in the 1966 World Cup quarter-final until 32 years later, just one of two bookings he ever received.
Booking-Free Players
Before we begin, note that this is not an entirely exhaustive list as not being booked used to be a little more achievable in decades gone by. Still, it is not something many players managed and our list will include all the highest-profile examples.
Gary Lineker
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The first man to feature on our list is none other than the crisp-munching Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker. A very fine striker back in his day, he played for big clubs, such as Barcelona, Everton, Leicester and Tottenham. He is also one of very few English players to have made the trip abroad to Japan following a move to Nagoya Grampus Eight where he ended his playing career.
Across 647 appearances, the well-behaved Lineker never did collect a yellow card. It was his exemplary on-field behaviour that saw him collect the FIFA Fair Play award in 1990. Part of the reason he was able to stay out of the ref’s book was the fact he very rarely tackled players. There was no demand for him to ever harass defenders or attempt to stick a boot in. He also managed to get away without punishment for his infamous shorts-browning accident in the 1990 World Cup. It turns out using the pitch as a toilet is not considered ‘foul’ play, as long as you do it discreetly.
John Charles
Flying the Welsh flag on our list is William John Charles, although he went by his middle name. As an extremely versatile player, Charles spent time playing as both centre back and centre forward. No matter where his manager told him to play though, the former Leeds United skipper always stayed on the referee’s good side. Over an incredibly busy career that spanned 753 games across 25 years, Charles never picked up a booking. As well as being remembered as an incredibly clean player, Charles is probably the only player to have ever won both the Welsh Cup and a Serie A title, the latter coming thanks to a successful stint at Juventus.
Stanley Matthews
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One of the reasons the aforementioned Charles is such a great addition to our list is the sheer number of games he played. To play as many games as he did is impressive enough but then to avoid a single booking, that is something else. There is one man that managed to outshine him in this area though and this is the legendary Stanley Matthews. His unbelievable longevity saw his career last 35 years. In today’s game, an outfield player will do extremely well to last to 40 years of age but Matthews kept going until he was 50 years old.
Although in some later years, Matthews did not get out on the pitch as often as before, he still managed to rack up over 850 appearances for club and country. How did he avoid a single booking across so many matches? Well, Matthews’ real ability was with the ball rather than without it. His teams never relied on him to make tackles and indeed this is something he very rarely did. Instead, what he brought to the team was an incredible ability to dribble with the ball, but only with his right foot mind you. For all his impressive qualities, Matthews’ left foot was not one of them.
Jimmy Dickinson
Much like Matthews, fellow Englishman Jimmy Dickinson also hung up his boots in 1965. His career had started significantly later but the Portsmouth man played relentlessly during the 19 years he was active. So fit and injury-proof he was that he actually almost featured as many times as Matthews despite having a career nearly half as short. Excluding the 1954-55 season in which Dickinson featured 25 times, every other season the Pompey legend made at least 40 club appearances (plus extras for England).
Although he passed away at the relatively young age of 57 in 1982, he is still remembered to this today for several reasons. Portsmouth fans will know him as their longest-serving player and the player to make the most appearances for the south coast side. He was so committed to the club, Dickinson even stuck with them when they went down to the Third Division in 1961. His other place in the history books is down to the fact he never collected a single booking in his career. It is for this reason how he fittingly acquired the nickname, Gentleman Jim.
Billy Wright
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Now we have another one-club man but this time it is Wolves hero William Ambrose Wright, or rather Billy Wright. One of the top centre-halves of his time, he featured 105 times for England (90 as captain) and 541 times for Wolves. Unlike some others on this list, opting out of tackling was not an option for this ball-winning defender. It is testament to his ability that the Ballon d’Or Silver Award winner ended up playing over 600 matches in the heart of defence and never ended up with a caution.
Dixie Dean
Although Dean is unable to continue our mini-streak of one-club men, he did spend the overwhelming majority of his career at just one team, Everton. As a boyhood fan, it was easy for Dean to stay at Goodison Park and he scored a phenomenal number of goals during his time there. In one particularly fruitful season (1927-28) Dean racked up an incredible 60 league goals, a record that stands to this day. This, we have to admit, is even more impressive than going a career without being booked, despite often facing provocative and rough challenging defenders.
Billy Liddell
For someone described as a bone-breaking player, it may come as a surprise that Billy Liddell features on our list. He was not breaking bones through rough challenges though, rather he had an unbelievably powerful shot. He played over 500 times for Liverpool, the only club he ever appeared for and is still revered on Merseyside to this day. In his biography, Liddle at One Hundred, it explains how Liddell was a consummate professional that never smoked, drank, or spoke out of turn. It is this unassuming attitude that meant he never faced the referee’s wrath.
Peter Shilton
Shilton is a unique entry to our list because he is the only man to have picked up a red card, but not a yellow. Technically having gone his whole career without a booking, Shilton deserves his place here. He is especially worthy as the shot-stopper played over 1110 games so to avoid a yellow card for so long is such an unbelievable achievement. It was only after passing the 1000 mark that England’s most capped player received his first-ever card. Playing in goal for Plymouth Argyle in 1992, the ‘Hand of God’ victim saw red for making a professional foul after just 26 minutes.
Modern Examples
One thing we are sure you have noticed from the above list is that all the players retired long ago. It does seem that going a career without a booking is even harder than it used to be with referees more card-happy than in previous decades. Generally speaking, football used to be a much rougher game with players given a lot more leniency especially when it came to tackling.
It is not possible to find a modern-day retiree or player deep into their career without a yellow card to their name but there are some with very few. These names act as the closest thing we can hope to get to a cardless player. We have largely focussed on outfield players here as it is a harder task for an outfield player to avoid collecting a yellow.
Alex Iwobi
It is fair to say that Alex Iwobi has not yet developed into the talent that some thought he would. If the former Arsenal youth academy prospect has been frustrated by his inability to push on to the next level, it certainly has not shown on the pitch. The fresh-faced winger is one of the cleanest players in the entire Premier League. Approaching 300 senior appearances for club and country, the winger has only found himself in the book on four occasions. Admittedly, only a minority of appearances have been a full 90 minutes but it is a very impressive record nonetheless.
Luciano Narsingh
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Swansea fans may remember this Dutch forward as he spent two and half years in South Wales. Although he failed to make much of an impression on the pitch, scoring just three goals in 40 appearances, he certainly didn’t gather a reputation as a trouble maker either. The Dutchman did not collect a single yellow during his time at the Liberty Stadium and he has had a knack for avoiding them throughout his career.
At the time of writing, the 31 year old had made 348 appearances for club and country but registered just four yellow cards and no reds. His last recorded card dates back to 1st October 2016 in which he got in trouble with the ref after replacing Steven Bergwijn in the second half.
Ledley King
The centre back position has traditionally been a magnet for yellow cards. Players here are the ones putting in the tackles, jumping up for headers and blocking crosses so it is easy to end up committing an offence. Ledley King was not your typical defender though, brilliantly clean in the tackle and someone who always played with a cool head. Unfortunately, injuries prevented him from featuring as much as he might have but the Englishman still featured 297 times for his club, picking up a mere nine yellow cards in the process and no reds.
Aaron Hughes
Boasting an even better disciplinary record than Ledley King is the recently retired Aaron Hughes. Best known for his time at Fulham, the Northern Irish defender was a regular at this time in London before taking on more of a backup role after this point. Despite dwindling club appearances, the Cookstown man continued to play regularly for his home country, amassing 94 appearances in total. When adding this to his club appearances, Hughes made well over 500 appearances.
Much like King, Hughes was a very honest and clean defender, one that took every yellow card personally. He was actually not a million miles away from scoring as many goals as he collected cards but he ended up falling a little short. On 11 occasions did a referee brandish a card his way while he managed to get himself on the scoresheet seven times.
Richard Wright
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The last few years of Richard Wright’s career were uneventful, to say the least. Between the 2010-11 season and the 2015-16 season, the Ipswich-born shot-stopper featured just three times. Four of these seasons were spent at Manchester City where he was kept on as an unneeded emergency option, often third or even fourth in the pecking order.
People do forget however that earlier on in his career, Wright was a regular between the sticks. Across his career, he made 422 club appearances, with over half of these coming in the Championship. During this time the twice-England-capped goalkeeper collected just two yellow cards, which is a lot fewer than most other keepers end up with after a similar number of appearances.
Karim Benzema
Although his involvement in an off-field blackmail scandal rather sullied Karim Benzema’s reputation, on the pitch it is a completely different story. The Frenchman, despite playing at an elite level for so many years, has never needed to resort to any nasty tricks to get ahead. Rarely provoking the attention of the referee, Benzema has spent many a season avoiding a card of any colour.
Aged 33 and still banging in the goals for Real Madrid, he still has time to add to his tally but his average rate is so slow that it is hard to see it going up much. In a whopping 491 league appearances, Benzema collected a mere 10 yellow cards. His record across all competitions for club and country reads over 800 games played and just 14 yellows shown. It is also worth noting none of these yellow cards have come when playing for his country. Clearly, as a proud Frenchman, the Lyon-born man is on his extra best behaviour when playing for Les Blues.
Phil Foden
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At just 21 year old, Phil Foden’s appearance on our list is slightly unusual but he is still deserving as he has made such a clean start to his promising career. It did not take long for the Manchester City star to gain a reputation as a player who will try and stay on his feet rather than go down. His honesty has already worked against him on some occasions but Foden, to his credit, seems committed to maintaining an ethos of fair play.
It is for this reason that after 150 senior appearances Foden has only amassed three yellow cards, including none in the Premier League. If able to sustain this rate of one card every 50 games, he will certainly end his career as one of the cleanest outfield players of his time.