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No, it was that day at Barnsley, Boxing Day 2006, and for some reason Oakwell has a real habit of giving referees nightmares when the visitors are Burnley. 1-0 down but we were battering them when a Gifton Noel-Williams effort was kept out on the line by a clear handball right in front of him. Corner was the decision astonishingly, and from that moment he went on to have a nightmare.
We've seen him only once since and that was in August 2008 and our away trip to Crystal Palace. There were eight yellow cards that afternoon and two red cards, as both James Scowcroft and Shaun Derry received their marching orders. He might not have evened things up but his disallowing of a Chris McCann goal that afternoon was a nonsense.
Aged 34, he's now in his ninth season on the league list, although last season he didn't referee a single game at any level. This season he's been clocking up the yellow cards with 45 in 12 games. Of those, 18 have gone to home team players and 27 to away team players. His only red card this season went the way of Gillingham's Mark Bentley in their 7-4 defeat at Accrington.
His last game was the League Two clash between Torquay and Bury at Plainmoor two weeks ago. He yellow carded Elliott Benyon (Torquay) and Bury's Tom Lees and Efe Sodje.
The assistant referees tomorrow are Lee Betts (Norfolk) and John Hopkins (Essex). The fourth official is Steve Rubery (Essex).
Previous Burnley games:
Season | Opps | V | Res | Y | R | Burnley players carded |
a | ||||||
2003/04 | West Ham | a | 2-2 | 5 | 0 | Camara Grant |
2004/05 | Leicester | a | 0-0 | 2 | 1 | Duff Sinclair |
2004/05 | Sunderland | h | 0-2 | 2 | 1 | Roche Akinbiyi(R) |
2006/07 | Barnsley | a | 0-1 | 3 | 0 | Duff Hyde |
2008/09 | Crystal Palace | a | 0-0 | 8 | 2 | Paterson McDonald Carlisle |