Laws and that reminds us of Deepdale

Lee Roche and his team mates look on in disbelief as Laws points to the spot at Deepdale

He’s had arguments with each of our last two managers, including one mighty half time battle with Stan Ternent on the day we beat Gillingham in the cup, that cost Stan some money and won him a touchline ban.

A year earlier he had been in a battle with Stan at another FA Cup tie, this time at Grimsby, he and his brother David hounded Kevin Ball and then there was the farcical refusal to deal with the professional foul as we went down to Scunthorpe in front of the television cameras.

None of that of course is forgetting his last visit to the Turf when he allowed the New Year’s Day game against Leicester to start on a pitch that was, how can we put it, flooded. Oh, and we’d forgotten the difficult to believe sending off of David Eyres eight years ago.

He’s refereed two games so far this season. Firstly he was on parade again in front of the Sky cameras as Leeds beat Millwall on the opening weekend 2-1. There were four yellow cards that day, two each, and a penalty although one not quite so difficult to understand as the one at Preston.

His other game was a week last Saturday at the League One game between Chesterfield and Rotherham. The Millers picked up three points from a 1-0 away win but also collected four yellow cards as did Chesterfield.

So that’s a dozen yellow cards in two games, six each to home and away sides.

To be fair to him he has had some good games refereeing Burnley but they do take some finding amidst the poor games. I don’t think there were too many complaining at Bradford as that Ian Moore goal gave us a much needed win two seasons ago.

Tomorrow he will be assisted by Mark Haywood and Richard Hewitt, both from Yorkshire. There is no news as to who will be acting as fourth official.

Previous Burnley games: