A Friend to end the year

The 43-year-old from Leicestershire had a decent game on that occasion and probably his worst two Burnley games have been in away wins, a 2-1 Watford in 2007 and the 4-2 victory just a couple of months later at QPR.

Besides this season's West Ham game, he's refereed us in the Premier League on one previous occasion. That was the home win against Birmingham in 2009 and was just his second game at the top level.

He's now a referee who is employed predominantly in the Premier League. Eleven of his 16 games this season have been there with four in the Championship and one Capital One Cup tie.

He was one of four referees who will be in charge of Premier League games tomorrow who didn't referee on Boxing Day. Yesterday he was fourth official at the Chelsea v West Ham game.

In the 16 games he's refereed this season there have been a total of 64 yellow card with 30 of them going to home team players and 34 to away team players. He's also sent off two players. The first of them was Swansea's Jonjo Shelvey in a 0-0 draw at Everton and a week later he dismissed Birmingham's Wes Thomas in another 0-0 draw, this one a home game against Cardiff.

His last game was last Saturday, the 2-2 draw between Nottingham Forest and Leeds at the City Ground. To add to the four goals there were also four yellow cards with them going to Eric Lichaj , Michael Mancienne and Michael Antonio of Forest and Leeds' Sam Byram.

He started this season with a RATE THE REF rating of 47.82 out of 100, but his performance in the West Ham game has seen it climb to 62.06.

The assistant referees tomorrow are Ian Hussin (Merseyside) and Stuart Burt (Northamptonshire). The fourth official is Michael Oliver (Northumberland) who refereed our opening game of the season against Chelsea.

Previous Burnley Games