Different style from this referee

Last updated : 25 December 2006 By Tony Scholes
He warmed up for this game at Plymouth on Saturday where he added another six yellow cards and a red card to his collection, leaving two West Brom players suspended for their upcoming games against Preston and Ipswich. “I never quibble about referees,” said a clearly upset Mowbray. “Nobody would ever question their integrity and what's done is done.”

Those cards have taken his total for the season to 75 yellow and 4 red in 18 games. It's fairly even between home and away bookings, 37 to home players and 38 to away players whilst all but one of the red cards have gone to away players, the one exception being Swindon's Royce Brownlie who was sent off in a home Carling Cup tie against Brentford that they lost on penalties.

He has refereed Burnley on three occasions and the last two were both in the 2004/05 season. On both occasions a player was sent off but to be fair he had little option on both occasions. The first of them was at Leicester when the home side's Jordan Stewart was sent off for kicking out at Ian Moore, the second was the home game against Sunderland when Ade Akinbiyi made his Burnley debut as a late substituted but didn't stop on for very long.

Although he got the red card decision correct, he had a poor game that night and it was difficult to find much else he got right, including getting the free kick the wrong way round that led to the nonsense with Ade, and missing the foul that led to Sunderland's goal.

It is his only bad performance in three Burnley games, at Leicester he was fine, just as he had been at West Ham in the previous season. But if you are expecting a referee who will fade into the background and let the players get on with playing, then Williamson is not the referee for you.

He will be assisted by Carl Bassindale (Yorkshire) and Dave Naylor (Nottinghamshire) whilst fourth official duties will be in the hands of Paul Thompson (Derbyshire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season

Opps

V

Res

Y

R

Burnley players carded

a

2004/05

Sunderland

h

0-2

2

1

Roche Akinbiyi(R)

2004/05

Leicester

a

0-0

2

1

Duff Sinclair

2003/04

West Ham

a

2-2

5

0

Camara Grant