As we look forward to our game tomorrow at Coventry we can now reveal the name of the referee allocated to the game.
He is Frazer Stretton from Nottingham, a 40 year old referee now in his sixth season on the Football League list.
This will be the first time he will have taken charge of a Burnley game since December last year when he was in charge of the home game against Blackburn and of course it was Stretton who sent Kevin Ball off. Previous to that he was the referee when we were beaten 2-1 at Luton Town during the promotion season.
Stretton has taken charge of 18 games this season and has issued 54 yellow cards, exactly 3 per game, and just 2 red cards. The players he has dismissed are Sheffield Wednesday's Derek Geary in the last minute of a 2-0 defeat at Birmingham and Richard Walker of Wycombe sent of in a 1-1 home draw against Swindon.
In his first two games this season he waved the yellow card six times on both occasions but that is his highest and on three occasions there have been no cards at all.
His most productive game ever was in February 1998 in a Division 2 game between Walsall and Plymouth. In that game he issued nine yellow cards.
This will be Stretton's fourth First Division game this season. He has already been in charge of Birmingham v Sheffield Wednesday, Crewe v Wimbledon and Rotherham v Portsmouth.
