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This is the referee that Stan claimed was not good enough to referee at Football League level, the referee who completely and utterly ruined our game at Bristol Rovers on Bank Holiday Monday 1999 in his only ever Burnley game.
There were no kind words from Bristol Rovers boss Ian Holloway either as Hill completely lost the plot in a game where he might as well have stuck the winning goal in himself. It was in fact scored by Jamie Cureton from the penalty spot after Mitchell Thomas had supposedly fouled Jason Roberts. I say supposedly, Hill was the only person to see anything in one of a string of mystifying decisions.
He was busy with his cards too with eleven yellow and one red. The red went to Bristol Rovers’ Trevor Challis for two yellows and these were probably the only two justifiable yellow cards all afternoon.
Apart from those two Simon Bryant, Jason Roberts and Andrew Thomson of Bristol Rovers all picked up yellow cards as did Burnley players Gordon Armstrong, Paul Cook, Tom Cowan, Glen Little, Micky Mellon and Mitchell Thomas.
This was nothing new to Hill, he had joined the league list the previous season and prior to the game at Bristol had shown 117 yellow and 14 red cards in just 32 games.
He has calmed down slightly but his record in just over four years shows 458 yellow cards and a staggering 40 red cards in just 131 games.
This season there has been just 1 red card in ten games although he is averaging just about 4 yellow per game with 39. The only player sent off was Wigan’s Tony Dinning in a 1-0 defeat at Colchester.
He has never refereed Leicester before so the home fans could be in for a shock. There is one thing for certain, Hill’s performance cannot possibly be as bad as it was at Bristol just over three years ago. I would though have much preferred never to see this referee again.