The little man from Stockport

One of the league's longest serving referees he hasn't caused us too many problems over the years although a word of caution, when we did have some problems with him it was Boxing Day. That was eight years ago when he handed out no fewer than eight yellow cards in a 4-2 defeat at Bury and also sent off Steve Davis.

We could have no complaints over the sending off, Davis handled the ball on the line, and neither could we point any fingers at the referee when he next took charge of a Burnley game, a 5-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest.

He's an unassuming referee and will try to let the players get on with playing, and he's not one for reaching for his cards too often. Leicester's Iain Hume is the only player to see his red card this season, he was sent off in Leicester's 0-0 draw at Scunthorpe.

Yellow cards are at a rate of less than two per game with 31 from seventeen games. They've been distributed fairly evenly with sixteen going to home players and fifteen to away players.

There are no guarantees on how a referee is going to perform, and anything is going to be better than the appalling performance from Lee Mason in the last home game. I'm hopeful Mathieson will referee the game sensibly.

The assistant referees with be Paul Graham (Greater Manchester) and Russell Green (Lancashire) and fourth official duties will be in the hands of Jim Waring (Lancashire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
1997/98	Carlisle	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	Nott'm Forest	a	0-5	4	0	Davis Payton
2001/02	Birmingham	a	3-2	4	0	Alan 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	.