| Tomorrow's game against Manchester City will be refereed by Nuneaton official Stuart Attwell, the youngest referee ever to officiate in the Premier League. |
It will be a first Burnley game for Attwell so we have none to look back on as far as our club are concerned but there is no doubt that this is a referee who has courted controversy for much of his short time in the game.
He was aged just 24 when he joined the Football League list at the start of the 2007/08 season. During that first season he was awarded five Championship games and in his very first he got a red card decision horribly wrong, sending off Blackpool's Ian Evatt against Sheffield United and awarding a penalty when no foul had been committed.
In an FA Cup tie between Swansea and Havant & Waterlooville he was accused by Roberto Martinez as being incapable of controlling the players. This followed a red card which led to a mass brawl on the pitch.
Incredibly, despite all the controversy, he was awarded the League Two play off final at Wembley between Rochdale and Stockport and at the time I was told that this was a referee who was being fast tracked to the top. Despite his concerning first season in the Football League he was immediately promoted to the Select Group, becoming a professional referee and being able to referee in the Premier League.
He was soon axed from the Premier League after some horror shows in the Championship early in 2008/09. It all started with the goal at Watford that went nowhere near the goal and then his incredible handling of the Derby v Forest game. This was shown live and was one of the worst refereeing performances I've ever seen.
After a while back in the Football League he got back into the Premier League and, after one game involving Wigan, Steve Bruce said he felt sorry for him because he was clearly not ready to referee at the top level.
This season has seen little change. It started with the friendly between West Brom and Chievo Verona in pre-season. At that game a message of condolence was being relayed to the crowd following the death of Sir Bobby Robson which was followed by a minute's applause. Attwell chose to ignore it and started the game whilst the message was being read out.
Since the season got underway we've had Rafa Benitez criticising his performance as fourth official at Spurs but more meaningful were the comments of Sammy McIlroy and Stuart McCall. After the Morecambe v Bradford City game they both claimed he was not fit to referee football at any level.
Since then he made something of a pig's ear of the Everton v Wolves game when he incredibly allowed Tim Howard to stay on the field after he grabbed Stefan Maierhofer player by the neck and threw him to the ground.
I can't recall a referee ever having such a start to his career. There are referees we like and some we are not quite so keen on but Attwell has far too often got things wrong and yet such is the desire to push him forward that he will referee his fifth Premier League game of the season tomorrow.
This season he's refereed a total of eight games. In those games there have been 21 yellow cards and two red cards. The two players he's sent off are Bradford City's Gareth Evans in that game at Morecambe that ended 0-0 and Wolves' striker Maierhofer during the incident with Howard in the game at Everton which ended in a 1-1 draw. Of the yellow cards, eight have gone to home players and thirteen to away players.
Hopefully we'll be talking about the game tomorrow evening and not the referee, but you do have to wonder why he continues to be put in the firing line when his performances suggest he shouldn't be getting any high profile games.
Tomorrow he'll be assisted by Scott Ledger (South Yorkshire) and Dave Bryan (Lincolnshire). The fourth official is Football League referee Jon Moss (West Yorkshire) who last refereed us at Hartlepool in this season's Carling Cup. |
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