Walton will take charge at St. Mary's

Last updated : 24 April 2009 By Tony Scholes
Walton is not my favourite referee and I can't help but recall the last time he refereed us away from home. That was at Cardiff in the 2006/07 season when he turned in a horror show which included a yellow card for Andy Gray because, in the words of the referee: 'He had been annoying me.'

He's refereed 38 games this season and in those games has handed out 86 yellow cards and four red cards. Of those yellow cards 35 have gone to home team players and 48 to away team players with the other three in the Community Shield at Wembley.

Over the last season he's upset some Premier League managers, although in fairness which referees haven't. The last one to complain about him was Harry Redknapp and that was following the last of his four red cards. He sent off Winston Palacios at Blackburn recently, and that helped change the game in the home side's favour after what was a strange looking decision.

I'm certainly hoping he'll turn in a better performance than the last time he took charge of a Burnley away game. He has to be better than that.

He will be assisted by Michael Bull (Essex) and Andy Williams (Herefordshire) whilst Football League referee Dean Whitestone (Northamptonshire) will be the fourth official. Whitestone refereed our recent 5-0 win over Nottingham Forest.

Previous Burnley games:

Season

Opps

V

Res

Y

R

Burnley players carded

a

1998/99

Luton

h

1-2

5

1

Branch Davis Mellon Neil Moore(Y/R)

2001/02

Stockport

a

2-0

3

1

Ian Moore Thomas

2002/03

Walsall

a

2-3

3

1

Cook Taylor

2003/04

Rotherham

a

0-3

2

0

.

2004/05

Nottm Forest

a

0-1

1

0

.

2005/06

Cardiff

h

3-3

4

0

Elliott Sinclair

2006/07

Cardiff

a

0-1

6

0

Gray O'Connor Lafferty McCann Sinclair

2007/08

Wolves

h

1-3

3

0

Lafferty O'Connor