It is Pike at Grimsby

Last updated : 12 April 2002 By Tony Scholes

I'm not so sure whether anything should be read into this but as we travel to the land of Fish tomorrow the referee is called Pike. It is 39 year-old Mike Pike who is now in his 5th season as a Football League referee and a referee who upset Saint Megson of West Brom last week for not spotting that a ball had crossed the line for what would have been a West Brom winner.

He is one of the quieter referees in terms of cards and in 36 games this season has issued 77 yellow cards (just over two per game) and only three red cards. Of those yellow cards just 29 have been issued to home team players and 48 to away team players.

The first of the three red cards was shown to Wimbledon goalkeeper Paul Heald in a 3-0 defeat at Watford. The score in the televised game was 0-0 at the time and it was a wrong decision to send Heald off.

The other two red cards have gone to Bury's Gareth Seddon in a 4-0 defeat at Oldham and Graham Allen of Tranmere in a 0-0 home draw against Colchester.

He has taken charge of one Burnley game this season already and that was the 2-1 home defeat against Sheffield Wednesday. There was just one yellow card in that game and went to Arthur Gnohere.

Last season he was in charge of the 2-0 home win against Norwich, Kevin Ball and Graham Branch were the two Burnley players booked along with three Norwich players. In 1998/99 he booked Andy Cooke in a 1-1 home draw against Wycombe and was also at the Turf for our 2-1 defeat against Millwall in 1997/98 when Andy Cooke again was the only Burnley player to get a yellow card.

The only time Pike has refereed a Burnley away game was the Worthington Cup tie at Maine Road that was lost 5-0, the only player to receive a yellow card that night was Paul Crichton.