Another Premier League referee

Last updated : 14 March 2008 By Tony Scholes
We can only hope that he turns in a better performance than the last time he refereed a Burnley game which was at Cardiff last season. On that occasion he was a late replacement for Chris Foy who had cried off with illness.

On his performance that day I wrote: "… a scandalous ninety minutes of refereeing from Premiership referee Peter Walton. Foy was punished recently for missing that appalling dive by Tottenham's Didier Zokora, and relegated from the Premiership. If Keith Hackett and his team were to take a look at this performance then I don't think Walton would get a game in the Burnley Sunday League this side of Christmas."

It was the day when Walton decided to yellow card Andy Gray because, in the referee's own words, he was annoying him. Andy Gray annoyed me when he left to go to Charlton, but I wasn't aware it was a yellow card offence.

Walton is certainly not my favourite referee, but in all fairness recently the ones that have worried me have probably proved to be better on the day, and others such as Howard Webb have been just the opposite.

He has something of a reputation for being a homer, and the cards certainly don't suggest otherwise. In 35 games this season he has handed out five red cards and 105 yellow cards. All but one of the red cards has gone to away team players whilst 34 of the yellows have gone to home team players and 71 to away team players.

This will be his first Turf Moor game since September 2005 and a 3-3 draw against Cardiff when Wade Elliott netted his first Burnley goals. And with Wade now back amongst the goals, who knows?

The assistant referees are Guy Beale (Somerset) and Simon (Essex) Beck and the fourth official is Football League referee Russell Booth (Nottinghamshire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season

Opps

V

Res

Y

R

Burnley players carded

a

1998/99

Luton

h

1-2

5

1

Branch Davis Mellon Neil Moore(Y/R)

2001/02

Stockport

a

2-0

3

1

Ian Moore Thomas

2002/03

Walsall

a

2-3

3

1

Cook Taylor

2003/04

Rotherham

a

0-3

2

0

.

2004/05

Nottm Forest

a

0-1

1

0

.

2005/06

Cardiff

h

3-3

4

0

Elliott Sinclair

2006/07

Cardiff

a

0-1

6

0

Gray O'Connor Lafferty McCann Sinclair