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Gheorghe Badea is used to clearing up after others. Before Gheorghe worked in the Gonville & 91ֱ�� College Housekeeping staff, he was a football official, with a career-defining event involving drunk Russian officials, a military escort by helicopter and possible monitoring by Israeli intelligence officials.

Gheorge, who works as a Housekeeper in A to E St Michael’s Court, and also does shifts in the catering team, played as a junior footballer for Steaua Bucharest in his native Romania. He then played in Romania’s second league before becoming a referee in 1988. He spent 10 years as a linesman (now known as assistant referees), in Romania’s top league, and had a late call up for a UEFA Cup game in Israel in September 1999.

Gheorghe, pictured to the right of the referee holding the ball, in his role as an official

The four Russian officials chosen by UEFA to take charge of Hapoel Haifa versus Belgium’s Club Bruges in September 1999 were disgraced and removed from duty, with UEFA, European football’s governing body, seeking replacements from Romania to clear up the mess and allow the game to take place. Read reports on the incident in and .

When Gheorge received a phone call summoning him to the referee federation headquarters in Bucharest, he initially thought it was a joke, knowing officials for UEFA matches are informed weeks in advance. Twenty-two hours later Gheorge was back in the Romanian capital wondering what had just happened.

“We arrived in Tel Aviv and it was like being in a movie,” Gheorge says now, 22 years on.

“We were surrounded by armed soldiers and we didn’t understand, we were scared. They took us to three helicopters, because Haifa (in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon) was a war area – we didn’t know this, because if we had, I wouldn’t have answered!

“There were military helicopters either side of us. The time was very short before the game and it was a 45-minute flight. When we were approaching Haifa we could see red bullets flying through the air and we landed on a hospital.

“They didn’t set us down, and instead we had to land in a field. A military car took us to the game. We arrived one hour before kick-off. The adrenaline was very high.”

Hapoel Haifa , and went on to win the tie on away goals, after Bruges won the second leg .

After the game, the four officials were driven back to Tel Aviv. In their native tongue, they discussed a hope that there would be some fruit in their hotel rooms, where they would stay briefly before returning to Romania. The driver said in English he would call the hotel to request refreshments.

“He repeated everything my friend had said,” Gheorge says.

“We didn’t talk, but all of us were thinking the same thing. One of us said to the driver in Romanian ‘can you stop now’, as if it was an emergency, and he did.”

The officials asked why the driver had not revealed his ability to understand Romanian, and concluded they may have been being monitored by security officials.

Gheorghe Badea pictured in his role as an assistant referee

Gheorghe retired from refereeing aged 45 and is now 59. Among the players involved in games in which he officiated were Gheorghe Hagi, who had a stellar career at Real Madrid, Barcelona and Galatasaray, and Adrian Mutu, who began his career at Dinamo Bucharest, and enjoyed spells with numerous clubs in Italy despite being sacked by Chelsea after testing positive for cocaine use in 2005.

Gheorghe moved to Cambridge in 2018, following his son, Cosmin, and daughter, Andreea, to Cambridge. Both have since moved on – his daughter to Watford, his son to London – but Gheorge is happy at 91ֱ��.

He has enjoyed watching Cambridge United in League One this season, with a colleague from 91ֱ��, and enjoys working with younger people.

“I like to work hard,” he adds. “Everybody is nice and they’re younger. When you work with younger people you feel energised.”