Poll is the referee

Last updated : 15 February 2003 By Tony Scholes
With just eight ties in the round it is the Premiership officials who have been allocated the matches and it will be Poll at Loftus Road.

This is the first time he has refereed a Burnley game for almost three years, the last time was our 3-2 win at Brentford close to the end of the promotion season. Poll appeared star struck that day when we introduced Ian Wright as a half time substitute and after Wrighty's superb second half showing, and his last Burnley goal, Poll made a beeline for him at the end to shake his hand.

He was our World Cup referee and is rated as one of the best two referees in the country alongside Paul Durkin and has certainly not gone over the top with his cards this season. In 25 games there have been 78 yellow and 3 red cards.

Of those yellow cards he has been pretty even with home and away team players with 38 to home and 40 to away players. The three red cards have been given to Birmingham's Olivier Tebily in a 1-1 draw at West Brom, Geoff Horsfield also of Birmingham in a 2-0 Worthington Cup home defeat against Preston and finally Fulham's Alain Goma in their 3-2 home win over Liverpool.

Poll claimed to have made big decisions in the past to get himself noticed to help his progress and it does seem to have worked. Thankfully now he does seem to have calmed down and does referee with more common sense.