Olivier is in charge

On that occasion Olivier, probably the smallest of Football League referees, had little option, but when he had sent off Mark McGregor at Watford almost four years previous to that it brought about an attack from then manager Stan Ternent who gave us his classic comment of: “The incompetence of referees needs to improve.”

Olivier is now in his ninth season on the Football League list and there is no doubt that he has improved considerably during that time. We saw some poor performances from him but probably the first time I saw him referee well was in the vital 1-1 draw at Forest in March 2004.

At this time last season he had been fairly busy with his cards, both red and yellow, but he calmed down and despite the odd game with six or seven bookings he ended the season with just 66 yellow and 3 red cards in 25 games. His only red card in the last year was in February when he dismissed Leicester's Patrick McCarthy in a 1-1 draw against Leeds.

This season he's started anything but quietly again. In three games so far he has handed out just four yellow cards but three of those came in the first game when he also sent off Oldham players Chris Taylor and Neal Eardley in their 1-0 defeat at Tranmere. Taylor won his appeal against the decision but Eardly had to serve a three match ban after failing to get his turned over, although the decision was ridiculously harsh after he was adjudged to have kicked the ball at an opponent. In true Olivier fashion only one of those cards gone to a home team player.

It will be just his second Turf Moor game tomorrow, the last was a home draw against Rotherham in 2003 when he yellow carded two players, both Clarets, Richard Chaplow and David May.

Tomorrow he will be assisted by Kevin Mattocks and Bob Roberts (both Lancashire) whilst the fourth official will be Paul Varley (Yorkshire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
2005/06	Reading	a	1-2	3	1	G O'Connor (Y+R) Harley
2004/05	Gillingham	a	0-1	2	0	J O'Connor
2004/05	Watford	a	1-0	2	0	Sinclair
2003/04	Nott'm Forest	a	1-1	0	0	.
2003/04	Rotherham	h	1-1	2	0	Chaplow May
2002/03	Watford	a	1-2	3	1	Gnohere Little McGregor(R)
2000/01	QPR	a	1-0	3	0	Mellon