[Ads-l] "red card" and "yellow card" n. (football/soccer) (Oct 28, 1968)

[Jesse Sheidlower]

OED has this from 1959:

I.4.b...._Sport_ (chiefly _Football_ (_Soccer_)). Of a referee: to record the name of (a player cautioned for a serious infringement of the rules); to administer such a caution to (a player)....

1959 Daily Mirror 29 December 15/1
Two minutes later Hooper..was booked for fouling goalkeeper Noel Dwyer.

Jesse Sheidlower

On Sat, Jul 11, 2026 at 09:36:36AM -0400, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> What about "to book" meaning given a red or yellow card?
> 
> DanG
> 
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2026, 6:18 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
> 00001aa1be50b751-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> 
> > The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has an entry for the noun "yellow
> > card" in the football/soccer domain with a 1969 citation.
> >
> > [Begin OED excerpt]
> > yellow card noun
> > 3. Sport (originally Football (Soccer)). A yellow card shown by the
> > referee to a player, coach, or team official to indicate that he or
> > she has received a caution or temporary suspension …
> > Yellow cards were first introduced for the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.
> >
> > 1969 A yellow card will indicate a caution and a red card, 'sent off'.
> > Guardian 13 June 18/6
> > [End OED excerpt]
> >
> > The OED also has an entry for the noun "red card" with the same
> > citation. Here is a 1968 citation which uses both "yellow card" and
> > "red card" with the desired sense.
> >
> > Date: October 28, 1968
> > Newspaper: Daily Mirror
> > Newspaper Location: London, England
> > Article: These Violent Mexican Fans Threaten World Cup
> > Subsection: Yellow
> > Quote Page 31, Column 2
> > Database: British Newspaper Archive
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > He had been booked earlier under a new system invented by Rous after
> > the confusion of the last World Cup when players did not learn until
> > long after the matches that they had been officially cautioned.
> >
> > Now, when a referee shows a player a yellow card, it means a final
> > warning. A red card means he is off.
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Garson
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> 
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