Mathieson for Bristol City game

This season is his 17^th as a Football League referee after being promoted from the linesmen's list in 1994, and he's a referee we've seen a lot of over the years.

His last Burnley game was the home defeat against Barnsley on Boxing Day 2008 but he'll be remembered more for the Boxing Day a year earlier when he ridiculously allowed a Sheffield Wednesday penalty to stand before checking on Gabor Kiraly.

I don't know what it is with Mathieson, Burnley and Boxing Day but he was also the referee in both 1998 and 1999 at York and Bury. In the Bury game he sent off two players and yellow carded eight as we fell to a 4-2 defeat. It was out of character for a referee who doesn't make massive use of his cards, although there could be no argument over the red card for Burnley's Steve Davis.

Last season he produced just 58 yellow cards, and only a couple of red cards, in 31 games. This season, in six games to date, he's shown thirteen yellow cards and one red card. Interestingly nine of the yellow cards have gone the way of home team players as has the red card.

That red card, along with four of the yellows, came in his last game which was the League One game between Bristol Rovers and Brentford on 11^th September which ended 0-0.

Stuart Campbell, Chris Lines and Gary Sawyer (Bristol Rovers) all received yellow cards as did Brentford's Karleigh Osborne. Sawyer also saw red for a second bookable offence.

From three games, Mathieson is down in 38^th place in the RATE THE REF table.

The assistant referees tomorrow are Kevin Mattocks (Lancashire) and Andrew Scregg (Liverpool). The fourth official is Adrian Holmes (West Yorkshire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
1997/98	Carilsle	a	1-2	3	0	Brass Ford
1998/99	York	a	3-3	2	0	Cooke
1998/99	Chesterfield	h	1-2	1	0	.
1999/2000	Bury	a	2-4	8	2	Davis(R) Branch Cook Cowan Little
2000/01	Nottm Forest	a	0-5	4	0	Davis Payton
2001/02	Birmingham	a	3-2	4	0	A Moore Davis
2002/03	Franchise	h	1-0	2	0	Taylor
2004/05	Coventry	h	2-2	1	0	Sinclair
2004/05	Brighton	h	1-1	2	0	Cahill
2005/06	Carlisle	h	2-1	0	0	.
2007/08	Sheffield Wed	h	1-1	4	0	Caldwell Unsworth
2008/09	Bury	a	2-0	1	0	.
2008/09	Barnsley	h	1-2	2	0	Jordan