Miller is back to referee at Burnley

Away from football, the 53-year-old Miller is a retired police sergeant and an avid bird breeder, but he's been a Football League referee since 2003 and is just coming to the end of his 11th season on the League list.

He was a keen player himself, playing as a striker in the Derwent Valley League, but hung up his boots at the age of 31 and took up the whistle, progressing through the Vaux, Wearside and Unibond Leagues before reaching the Football line and then that promotion to the middle in 2003.

It was during his time as a linesman that he courted publicity. This was when he was excused duties from the Durham Constabulary due to stress yet pitched up at Elland Road to run the line at a Premier League game between Leeds and Manchester United. Senior officers gave him permission because they thought it might be therapeutic.

As a referee his first Burnley game was a 1-1 home draw against West Brom in January 2004. He had a nightmare, and we've had far worse performances from him over the years. The defeat at QPR in 2004, the 3-2 reverse at Barnsley in the promotion season and our 4-0 home defeat against Reading in 2010 are notably horror stories about this referee.

I'm not getting too complacent but maybe he's starting to improve with age. Certainly his last three Burnley games have probably been his best, and certainly his least controversial. The last of those was our 4-0 defeat at Cardiff back in October. I don't think we took much notice of him that afternoon, more just how poorly we played.

It's not his first Easter game with the Clarets. He was the referee on Easter Monday a year ago when we won 2-1 at Doncaster and six years ago he was appropriately the referee on Easter Saturday at Birmingham, the day Clarets' legend Brian Miller sadly passed away.

In terms of cards, Forest probably need to have more concerns than us. Miller has refereed 32 games this season and handed out 89 yellow cards and four red cards. A total of 29 of those yellow cards have gone to home team players with 60 to away team players.

All four players sent off were playing for the away team with the last of them in the Championship, that being Brighton's Ashley Barnes at Bolton for tripping him up.

Miller was refereeing in the North West on Good Friday. He took charge of the League Two game at Spotland between Rochdale and Aldershot. The game ended 1-1 and there were three yellow cards, for Peter Cavanagh and Ian Henderson (Rochdale) and Jeff Goulding (Stevenage).

Those recent performances of Miller's have lifted him up the RATE THE REF Table. He's currently in 43rd place with a rating of 59.05 out of 100.

The assistant referees this afternoon are Kevin Mattocks (Lancashire) and Matthew Parry (Liverpool). The fourth official is Alf Greenwood (North Yorkshire).

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