Despite being based on Wearside, Haines is actually a Londoner and it was in the capital where he started refereeing in the 1990s. However, his move north saw him take it more seriously and he moved from the Wearside League and the Northern League to eventually become a Football League referee in 2007/08.
In an interview a couple of years ago he said his policy was to referee with a smile on his face and the four Burnley games he's refereed previously have left us with smiles as all of them have been won, the last of which was the Boxing Day win against Derby last season.
He's a referee who seems to average around three yellow cards per game and that's exactly where he is this season with 27 yellow cards in nine games. Of those cards, 14 have gone to home team players and 13 to away team players, with two of them awarded in a QPR game, their 1-1 draw at Huddersfield on the second Saturday of the season.
There have also been two red cards. He sent off Brentford goalkeeper David Button at Bradford City with just 26 minutes gone. The score was then 0-0 but they went on to lose 4-0.
The second red card came in his last game, Bury's 0-0 home draw against Mansfield. He sent off Mansfields' John Dempster and yellow carded his team mates Alan Marriott and James Jennings.
I think it is fair to say he has caused us no problems in his previous Burnley games and that's left him in 8th place in the RATE THE REF Table with a rating of 77.65 out of 100.
The assistant referees are Paul Curry (Northumberland) and Jonathan Hunt (Liverpool). The fourth official is Football League referee Mark Heywood (Cheshire) whose only Burnley game was last season's 2-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest.
Previous Burnley Games
| Season | Opponents | V | Res | Y | R | Burnley Players Carded |
| 2010/11 | BARNSLEY | h | 3-0 | 1 | 0 | n Mears |
| 2011/12 | DERBY | a | 2-1 | 2 | 0 | n Mee |
| 2012/13 | PORT VALE | a | 3-1 | 3 | 0 | n Mills, Wallace |
| 2012/13 | DERBY | h | 2-0 | 5 | 0 | n Wallace, McCann, Treacy, Grant |