Footballers all over the world routinely disagree with referees’ decisions, but very rarely has disputing a decision ever ended up going well for a player.
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Enter comedian Max Fosh, who hilariously produced a UNO reverse card in response to being booked by ex-Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg.
Playing for the YouTube All-Stars against the Sidemen FC in the annual Sidemen Charity Match at a sold-out London Stadium, Fosh was seeing yellow after a late challenge on internet personality Simon Minter in the 77th minute, only to pull out a green UNO reverse card.
A reverse card in the popular card game, where the aim is to lay down all of one’s own cards, reverses the direction of play, and has since become used as a popular meme used to refer to a comeback or karmic change of events.
Notwithstanding that under conventional UNO rules, the fact of the card being green (and not yellow) would have rendered it useless, Clattenburg promptly withdrew his yellow card, stunned by what he’d just seen.
Fosh’s antics weren’t enough to lift the YouTube All-Stars to victory, going down 8-5 in a match that raised over $4.7 million for four UK charities, including the Teenage Cancer Trust, mental health organisation CALM, education charity M7 Education, and children’s charity Rays of Sunshine.
Social media lit up in response to the viral moment, with one fan on social media incredulous.
“Max Fosh just UNO-Reversed Mark Clattenburg for a yellow card and it worked, what am I watching,” the fan wrote.
A number of other fans asked when Arsenal star Katie McCabe would do similar – McCabe is known for her dark arts antics, such that she has a Twitter account named after her titled “Did Katie McCabe get a yellow card today?”.
“Katie McCabe to do this when,” asked one fan.
Sports podcaster Matt Mysh called it “the greatest response to a yellow card I’ve ever seen.”
The 28-year-old Fosh, the son of former Cambridge University and Essex first-class cricketer Matthew, came to prominence after going viral in early 2022 after an impromptu street interview struck a comic nerve with audiences worldwide.
Misidentifying a grapefruit as a pomegranate, and the subsequent correction he received, had audiences in stitches over his humble response – “I don’t know my fruits!”