Mark McGregor will remember this referee

Stan stormed after the game, “Their penalty was offside, their guy was standing two yards in front of Mark McGregor who had his hands up claiming. It will probably be after my time but the incompetence and lack of professionalism by referees needs to improve because they are a constant headache”.

He’s refereed a couple of Burnley games since and although he was in his usual nit-picking mood for one of them it is fair to say that he had a good game when we drew 1-1 at Forest last March.

His 2004/05 got off to a quiet start last Saturday when the cards didn’t come out of his pocket as Darlington beat Grimsby 1-0 at the recently named New Stadium.

But he made up for it in midweek as he matched the goals when Brentford beat Doncaster 4-3. He handed out six yellow cards and one red, that of Brentford’s Matt Somner. The London club appealed against what they considered to be nothing more than a challenge for the ball and manager Martin Allen called the decision a kick in the teeth.

He’s not an over active referee though as far as cards are concerned, just a nit-picking referee who seems to go out of his way to stop players from getting on with the game. Hopefully he’ll have a game similar to the one he had at Forest last season.

He will be assisted at Watford by Gary Evetts (Hertfordshire) and Nigel Murphy (Nottinghamshire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
2003/04	Nottm Forest	a	1-1	1	0	.
2003/04	Rotherham	h	1-1	2	0	Chaplow May
2002/03	Watford	a	1-2	3	1	Gnohere Little McGregor(red)
2000/01	QPR	a	1-0	3	0	Mellon