This is his fifth season on the list of Football League referees but only once previously have our paths crossed and that was in the corresponding fixture two seasons ago, the last time we played at 
On that occasion we lost 2-0 and had four players yellow carded during the second half but I wrote of Penton’s performance at the time, “Penton had had a quiet first forty five minutes but he more than made up for it in the second half with a series of yellow cards, although it was difficult to find anything to complain about with any of them to be fair.”
He did miss what looked very much like a clear penalty that afternoon but other than that there is little I can say about a referee I’ve not seen live before or since. A look at his record this season suggests that, although he is not a card happy fool like Probert or Kettle, he is not shy at taking action and has so far handed out 70 yellow and 6 red cards in 21 games.
Three of those red cards came in consecutive games back at the end of August whilst the other three are all in the last three games with two of them leaving Huddersfield to finish with nine men as they drew at Franchise just under three weeks ago.
Five of those six red cards have gone the way of away team players and there is a similar, if not quite as exaggerated, pattern with the yellow cards with 28 going to home team players and 42 to away team players.
His assistant referees at
Previous Burnley games:
Season | Opps | V | Res | Y | R | Burnley players carded |
a | ||||||
2003/04 | Norwich | a | 0-2 | 5 | 0 | Camara Chadwick Grant Roche |