Webster is referee on opening day

Last updated : 05 August 2005 By Tony Scholes

That last game was back in February of this year when he had something of a nightmare when he took charge of our 1-0 home defeat against Leeds. He got very little right that afternoon although most of his poor decisions went our way.

He failed to send off Gary Cahill early in the game when he prevented a clear goal scoring opportunity, although he did send off Frank Sinclair who somehow only got a second yellow despite kicking out at Leeds’ Gylfi Einarsson (Sinclair was given the Man of the Match award).

He disallowed a perfectly good David Healy goal and then awarded us a penalty which could only be described as dubious. Ian Moore missed it though to give Kevin Blackwell and the Leeds fans some idea of his ability in front of goal.

It was one of two Burnley games for Webster last season, the other one being the early season draw against Wolves where I described his performance as fussy. This will be Webster's eighth Burnley game in his sixth season on the league list but the previous five have all been at Turf Moor.

Overall last season Webster refereed 38 games and handed out 126 yellow cards and 11 red cards. Should we be more worried than Crewe with these figures? Of those cards 49 yellows were to home players and 77 to away players whilst 5 red cards were given to home players and 6 to away players.

He handed out at least one yellow card in each game and in the Chester v Shrewsbury League Two game gave out seven yellow and three red cards. Thankfully he doesn’t have too many games like that.

The assistant referees at Crewe are Alan Sheffield (West Midlands) and Rob Steans (Leicestershire) and the fourth official is Colin Harwood (Greater Manchester).

Previous Burnley games:

Season

Opps

V

Res

Y

R

Burnley players carded

a

2004/05

Leeds

h

0-1

3

1

Cahill Sinclair (2Y)

2004/05

Wolves

h

1-1

5

0

Camara Grant

2002/03

Bradford City

h

0-2

4

1

Davis Gnohere(2Y)

2002/03

Blackpool

h

3-0

3

0

A Moore Blake

2001/02

Gillingham

h

2-0

0

0

.

2001/02

Crewe

h

3-3

2

0

I Moore

2000/01

Barnsley

h

2-1

7

1

Cox Johnrose I Moore