D'Urso in charge of Posh game

The man we have got is former Premier League referee and one of the longest serving Football League referees, Andy D'Urso.

It was a rapid rise for the referee from Billericay when he was first appointed to the league in 1994. Five years later he was promoted to the Premier League and in 2001 was nominated for FIFA status and in May 2004 he refereed a full international for the first time.

This, despite the now infamous incident at Old Trafford in January 2000 when, having awarded Middlesbrough a penalty, he was confronted by angry United players with pictures showing D'Urso backing away.

"It was my first season in the Premier League, my first time refereeing Manchester United and my first time at Old Trafford," he said. "With more experience I would have stood my ground. I kept saying 'go away' but the further back I walked the more they walked on."

In September 2004 he was suspended for 28 days after yellow carding Blackburn's Barry Ferguson twice in a game without sending him off. That led to a decision to relegate him from the Select Group, a decision he successfully appealed against at the end of the 2004/05 season.

Despite winning the appeal he didn't referee at the top level again but has continued to referee at Football League level.

He's not refereed Burnley too often over the years shown by the fact that Chris Waddle and Chris Eagles are two of the players he's carded in five Burnley games.

There have been a couple of disappointing performances in those games, certainly the defeat at Notts County in our first game of the Millennium and also the defeat to Sheffield Wednesday four years ago when our promotion hopes looked to have all but ended with eleven games to go.

His last two Burnley games have brought not problems and hopefully that will be the case tomorrow.

This season he's refereed 25 games in which there have been 55 yellow cards and five red cards. Of those yellow cards, 23 have gone to home team players and 32 to away team players.

Two of the players sent off have been in Championship games. He sent off Birmingham's Nikola Zigic in a 1-0 home defeat to Huddersfield and Zak Whitbread of Leicester in a game they lost 2-1 at Watford.

He's right in the middle of the RATE THE REF Table, in 32nd place with a rating of 65.23 out of 100. 

The assistant referees are Darren Blunden (Kent) and Nick Kinseley (Essex). The fourth official is Stephen Ross (Lincolnshire).

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