00:00After the player committed a brutal, violent foul, the referee had had enough.
00:04He walked over to the player and he showed him the one symbol that all German soccer players feared.
00:10The arse card.
00:12See, in 1970, red and yellow cards were officially written into the rules at the World Cup in Mexico.
00:18The idea was to give greater clarity to players, audiences and officials
00:22when a player was being warned, a yellow card, or sent off, a red card.
00:26The Germans adopted the system shortly after in 1971, but this created a massive problem for the TV audiences.
00:33Because at the time, most households in Germany were still watching matches on black and white TV sets.
00:38So to German TV audiences, a yellow card and a red card looked almost identical.
00:44They were both just pale grey rectangles.
00:47When a referee held up a card, fans at home still had no idea if their player was just being
00:51warned or sent off the pitch.
00:53And so, the Germans, being the ever-efficient, crafty bunch they are,
00:57came up with an ingenious system to distinguish the cards by location rather than colour.
01:02The referees kept the yellow card in the breast pocket of their shirt,
01:05and the red card they shoved up their...
01:08in their...
01:09they put it in the back pocket of their shorts.
01:12Also known as the arse pocket.
01:14And so, the red card became known colloquially as the arse card.
01:17However, over the decades, the phrase has drifted from the football pitch into everyday German language.
01:23And today, in Germany, if you're assigned the weekend shift at work,
01:26get stuck as the designated driver,
01:28or have to pay the bill for a large group,
01:30you yourself have pulled the arse card.
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