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Needless to say they have come in as replacements and last season proved to be the last for Steve Baines, David Elleray, Graham Frankland, Bill Jordan, David Laws, Paul Rejer, Clive Wilkes and Eddie Wolstenholme. All of them have either retired or been demoted.
The names certainly bring back some memories and none more so than David Elleray and a Wembley day in May 1994, he never refereed the Clarets again after that game incidentally. Twice he waved his red cards at Stockport players as ‘Tin Man’ wound up the Unprofessionals.
David Laws was another to get the red card out in a Burnley game. He was the weak referee at Bramall Lane as our play off hopes ended in 2001, the match when Stan accused Warnock of having someone listening behind the door. He allowed Keith Curle to get away with murder that afternoon but sent Bally off for a couple of misdemeanours.
The retirement of Steve Baines also brings to an end the idea of having a former player refereeing in the league. Baines was considered weak by some but I considered him a fair and sensible official and one who was always prepared to use some common sense. Here was a referee who didn’t send a single player off in either of his last two seasons and in a total of 72 games in that time handed out just 59 yellow cards.
There are also changes at the top for the new season with new referees added to a reduced select group. Added for this season are Peter Walton from Winwick in Northants and Howard Webb from Rotherham but the list is reduced by four with six departures.
Elleray, Wilkes and Wolstenholme are all retired whilst Flood Warden Andy Hall, David Pugh and Mike Thorpe find themselves demoted.
It is one of the select group referees who will be in charge of our game on Saturday – namely Chris Foy from St. Helens – as we kick off the new season.
Of course none of them will do us any harm this season, none of them will get any crucial decisions wrong that work against us. And come May neither this web site nor Stan will have complained about any of them.
Last season Stan said of referee Ray Olivier after the league defeat at Watford, "The incompetence of referees needs to improve" and then at Gillingham, "We have amateur people in a professional field" when he spoke of Grant Hegley.
At Grimsby in the cup and the penalty we conceded given by Graham Laws, "He was the only person on Humberside who saw it’ and finally Cooperman twice. At Palace, "The referee gave a penalty, which was never a penalty’ and then at Millwall, "Cheated – he should be reffing down at Hackney Marshes".
Is it too much to ask that there aren’t quite so many poor performances from the officials?