Tomorrow's man in the middle

Last Updated : 31-Dec-2001 by

The 39 year-old official has been on the league list for five seasons and has so far this season refereed 21 league and cup games. In those games he has issued 52 yellow cards and 3 red cards with two of the red cards coming in the same game, the Worthington Cup tie between Blackburn and Oldham.

Sent off that night were Marcus Bent and Darren Sheridan in an unseemly incident towards the end of the game. The only other player to see red was Carlisle's Will McDonagh in their 6-1 FA Cup defeat at Tranmere.

He also issued 6 yellow cards in this game, the most in any game this season for him. He has though kept two clean sheets.

He is not a regular as far as Burnley matches are concerned and we have to go back almost to the start of Stan's time at Burnley for the last Clarets game he took charge of. It was the 1-0 home defeat against York when Stan announced that four players had played their last games for the club.

Prior to that he was in charge at Bristol City in the previous season when we led 1-0 at half time with a Paul Barnes goal but went on to lose 3-1 after getting a hammering in the second half.