Hill to referee cup tie

There could be no real complaints about that decision at Portman Road. Gifton Noel-Williams definitely stuck his hand in the air although he did protest his innocence claiming he'd been pushed. Hill hadn't had a good game, he failed to spot the antics of Ipswich for much of the game. He yellow carded four players that day, all Burnley players, but that wasn't much of a surprise.

Tonight will be the seventh Burnley game he's refereed, and no matter how well or badly he does it will never be anything like his first Burnley game when he lost the plot completely. I don't think the yellow card ever went back in his pocket in a game at Bristol Rovers where be booked ten players and sent one off, that apart from giving a penalty that wasn't which led to the only goal of the game.

Between those two games, Bristol Rovers and Ipswich, there haven't been too many problems from him and that's how we hope it will be tonight. He is a referee with a reputation for hitting away players harder and his cards again last season emphasised that. In 34 games he issued a total of 117 yellow cards, with 41 going to home players and 76 to away players. He also sent off a total of nine players and only Lincoln's Nat Brown was sent off playing at home, and he went in a double red card affair with Stockport's Liam Dickinson.

This season he's taken charge of two League One games. The first was at Southend (v Cheltenham) and last weekend he was at the City Ground for the game between Nottingham Forest and League One Leeds. He's handed out a total of seven yellow cards so far, three to home players and four to away players.

I think we can rest assured it won't be a Bristol Rovers type performance tonight, I'm sure he's never had a game like that since, although he certainly does has his moments with cards and there have been other games when he's hit double figures or gone close.

He will be assisted tonight by three Yorkshire officials. They are assistants Philip Bramley (West Yorkshire) and Wayne Grunnill (East Yorkshire) and fourth official Barry Sygmuta (North Yorkshire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
2006/07	Ipswich	a	1-1	4	0	Lafferty McGreal Noel-Williams Thomas
2004/05	Cardiff	h	1-0	3	0	Branch Duffy
2003/04	Sunderland	h	1-2	4	0	Branch Camara May
2002/03	Brentford	a	3-0	1	0	Taylor
2002/03	Leicester	a	1-0	6	0	Davis Gnohere Little
1999/2000	Bristol Rovers	a	0-1	10	1	Armstrong Cook Cowan Little Mellon Thomas