D'Urso back to referee the Clarets

D'Urso, from Billericay in Essex, is now in his 20th season as a Football League referee. It is 20 years that has seen him rise to the top of his game as a Premier League referee but then suffer the axe after being suspended for 28 days for yellow carding Blackburn's Barry Ferguson twice in a game without sending him off.

And this came after a first season in the top flight when he was the manager bullied by a group of Manchester United players after he'd had the audacity to award Middlesbrough a penalty at Old Trafford. Only this week, on a television programme, Roy Keane, who led the charge, said it was something that he now regrets.

Despite having refereed at international level it is now over nine years since he was given a Premier League game but he's continued to referee at Football League level although he's not a referee, over the years, we've seen too much of.

He's had his ups and downs when he has refereed Burnley, If you take a look at the games below his performances in our games against Notts County and Sheffield Wednesday were particularly disappointing and the least said about some of the decisions at Ewood Park are probably for the better.

But in the others he's done reasonably well and I thought at Peterborough in February of this year he had an excellent game.

This season he has, so far, refereed 15 games with seven of them in the Championship. He's given out a total of 48 yellow cards and four red cards.

Of those yellow cards, 20 have gone to home team players and 28 to away team players. Two of the players he's sent off have been in Championship games. They are Charlton's Bradley Pritchard in a 2-1 defeat at Bournemouth and Aaron Cresswell of Ipswich in their 1-1 home draw against Barnsley.

His last game was last Sunday's FA Cup tie between Tamworth and Bristol City. There were three yellow cards in that game, Tony Capaldi and Lee Hildreth of Tamworth and Bristol City goalkeeper Elliot Parish.

Andy D'Urso is currently 23rd in RATE THE REF with a rating of 68.34 out of 100.

The fourth officials are Philip Dermott and Michael Salisbury (both Lancashire). The fourth official is Football League referee Brendan Malone (Wiltshire) who sent off Marvin Bartley in our 2-0 defeat at Crystal Palace in August 2011, his only Burnley game to date.

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