D'Urso's been paying the penalty

Last updated : 21 February 2014 By Tony Scholes

I say soft, on seeing it again on television it was clear that the penalty he awarded Leicester, converted by David Nugent was an incorrect decision, and this week he's been having another torrid time in terms of spot kicks.

Last Saturday at Doncaster he refused a blatant penalty because, inexplicably, he'd turned his back on play and seen nothing, still refusing it when a member of his team indicated to him that it was a foul.

He surpassed that in midweek when awarding Exeter a late penalty in their home game against Morecambe. The game had gone into stoppage time at 1-1 when D'Urso pointed to the spot when David Wheeler was felled.

It all led to a melee between the two teams and when that settled down Exeter prepared to take the penalty before D'Urso decided to change his mind. He yellow carded Wheeler for diving and sent off Morecambe's Jamie Devitt for his involvement in the afters.

The experienced D'Urso, from Billericay in Essex, is now in his 21st season on the league list but he'll probably always best be known for the incident at Old Trafford when he backed off from United players after being bullied by them over the award of a penalty to Middlesbrough.

He lost his Premier League place after yellow carding current Blackpool boss Barry Ferguson twice without sending him off. and has since settled back into refereeing in the Football League.

He's had some poor games refereeing Burnley and he's had some good games, particularly the game at Peterborough last February. The bad ones followed though, last season's draw at Blackburn and this season's draw at Leicester.

Tomorrow will be his 25th game this season. In the 24 to date he has shown 69 yellow cards and seven red cards with 27 of the yellow cards having gone to home team players and 42 to away team players.

Three of the red cards have come in Championship games. He sent off Charlton's Bradley Pritchard in their 2-1 opening day of the season at Bournemouth. In October Aaron Cresswell was dismissed in Ipswich's 1-1 home draw against Barnsley and Danny Shittu was sent off as Millwall crashed 4-0 at Watford on Boxing Day.

The Exeter v Morecambe game referred to above was his last game. Besides the yellow card for Wheeler and the red for Devitt there were three other players to see yellow, and all Morecambe players. They were Robbie Threlfall, Andrew Wright and Joe McGee.

The assistant referees are Peter Gooch and Gary Hilton. The fourth official is Football League referee Scott Mathieson (Stockport) whose last Burnley game was the home game against Leeds in November 2011.

Previous Burnley Games

Season Opponents V Res Y R Burnley Players Carded
             
1997/98 STOKE a 0-2 1 0 n Waddle
1998/99 NOTTS COUNTY a 0-0 4 0 n Armstrong, Little, Payton
2008/09 SHEFFIELD WED h 2-4 3 0 n Jordan, Duff
2009/10 READING a 0-1 4 0 n McCann, Eagles
2010/11 CRYSTAL PALACE h 1-0 2 0  
2012/13 PETERBOROUGH a 2-2 2 0 n Trippier, Shackell
2012/13 BLACKBURN a 1-1 4 1 n Austin, Mee n Mee
2013/14 LEICESTER a 1-1 2 0 n Marney