A fourth Burnley game for referee Linington

Last updated : 12 March 2014 By Tony Scholes

He's refereed Burnley on three previous occasions and, as is the case with tonight's game, all have been away from home. The first of them was at Watford during the promotion season. We lost 3-0 and I spent the entire minutes stuck on the M1 in Northamptonshire with the road ahead closed.

I've therefore seen him twice. The first of them was a 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace early in the 2010/11 season with the 1-0 defeat at Ipswich two years ago his last Burnley game. In the two I've seen there have not been too many problems with him.

That 2008/09 season, when he refereed us at Watford, was his first in the Football League. It all kicked off for him at Wycombe in a League Two 1-1 draw with Morecambe and our game at Vicarage Road, on Tuesday 27th January, was his first at Championship level.

He's still not a regular at this level and he's refereed just eight times in the Championship this season out of his total of 27 games.

Those 27 games have brought a total of 80 yellow and six red cards. All of the red cards have been in the lower divisions and of his yellow cards there have been  36 to home team players and 44 to away team players.

Last time out he refereed the League Two game between Bristol Rovers and Plymouth last Saturday. Bristol Rovers won the game 2-1 and there were three yellow cards for Kaid Mohamed of Bristol Rovers and Plymouth's Maxime Blanchard and Paul Wotton.

Linington is currently 25th in RATE THE REF with a rating of 67.86 out of 100.

The assistant referees tonight are Marvyn Amphlett and Steven Plane (both Worcestershire). The fourth official is Rob Ellis (West Midlands).

Previous Burnley Games

Season Opponents V Res Y R Burnley Players Carded
             
2008/09 WATFORD a 0-3 2 0 n Kalvenes
2010/11 CRYSTAL PALACE a 0-0 7 0 n Mears, Elliott, Carlisle, Fox
2011/12 IPSWICH a 0-1 0 1