Laws, Law and Lawson

The 44 year old police officer from Whitley Bay is in his ninth season as a Football League referee and he didn't take long to upset Burnley fans, in only his second game he ridiculously sent David Eyres off in a home game against Gillingham, and there have been a catalogue of shocking decisions since.

He had a half time bust up with Stan Ternent during a cup tie against Gillingham, and was involved in a similar incident with Steve Cotterill at the end of our game at Preston last season. That penalty decision at Deepdale was the worst of the lot whilst even he himself couldn't defend his own farcical dismissal of Wayne Thomas earlier in the season, admitting after the game that it was inconclusive.

It's worrying, but not as bad as it was a few years ago when his brother was refereeing as well, at least we only get the one of them now.

Laws has only refereed fifteen games this season. Having been in charge of the League Two game between Mansfield and Peterborough in mid-October he was involved in only one more game until three weeks ago and this will be his fifth game since returning, presumably from an injury.

Thomas is the only player he has sent off this season, and he's averaging exactly three yellow cards per game. He's favoured the away teams with the cards, along with the home red card 25 of those yellow cards have gone the way of home team players and 20 to away team players.

He's had some decent games refereeing Burnley, but there have been far too many bad ones for us not to have some concerns ahead of tomorrow's game.

The assistant referees are set to be Geoff Law (Leicestershire) and Keith Lawson (Lincolnshire) whilst the somewhat out of line, name wise, Carl Bassindale (Yorkshire) will be the fourth official.

Previous Burnley games: