Swarbrick referees QPR v Barnsley
Thursday, 7th Aug 2008 18:05

QPR return to action on Saturday with a home game against Barnsley - Neil Swarbrick from Lancashire takes charge of the R's for the fourth time.

Queens Park Rangers v Barnsley
Referee: Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire)
Assistants – Bentley and Bull
Fourth Official – Thompson

Welcome back, my God it’s been a long summer. Neil Swarbrick is our match official for this Saturday’s game with Barnsley – more on him in a moment. We start this week though with news of one of the country’s best referees Mark Clattenberg who has been taken off this weekend’s Charity Shield match and suspended from all refereeing indefinitely because of problems with his financial affairs and business.

Clattenburg's firm MC Electrical Retail NE Ltd was wound up under the Insolvency Act on 27 June and his business associate John Hepworth took legal action in a bid to recover a debt reported to be almost £60,000. Clattenberg has been replaced for the Man Utd v Portsmouth game at the weekend by my favourite evil cartoon mouse Peter Walton.

It would be a real shame for Clattenberg and for football if he can’t get this resolved and get back in the middle. He had a dodgy patch of form this time last year and was a bloody nightmare early in his career, I’ll never forget him booking Richard Langley for over celebrating in injury time at Huddersfield in front of 6000 people when he hadn’t even scored the goal, but he’s certainly right up there with Howard Webb as our country’s top man at the moment. The fact that he’s been replaced by Walton for this weekend’s big game tells you a lot about the dearth of quality we have in refereeing so we can well do without losing somebody of Clattenberg’s ability. Why his financial affairs should affect his ability to referee is lost on me I’m afraid.

Speaking of Howard Webb wasn’t he fussy at Loftus Road last week? Haven’t seen him use that much whistle in a long time. I thought he was harshly done to at the European Championships and got all his decisions right in Austria and Switzerland but he really started to do my head in after a while last week. Hopefully he’s just rusty like everybody else.

So then, Neil Swarbrick. He was in charge of two QPR games last season – Ipswich at home and Sheff Wed away picking up an average rating of 6.5 out of 10 and joint 14th on the referee league.

Referee: Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire) 6 Kept cards in his pocket and allowed the game to flow where possible but seemed to let Ipswich get away with far more than QPR to such an extent that when we did finally get a free kick right at the end of the game the whole ground cheered the decision. Got the penalty decision right I think, Bolder went over very easily. – LFW Ipswich Match Report

Referee: Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire) 7 - Seemed to referee the game very well to me, both the penalty decision and the red card were the correct decisions. Thought he could have handled the stoppage time situation a little better, he allowed it to degenerate into a farce by the corner flag and needed to take better control which could easily have been done by warning Songo’o over his play acting earlier in the game. No excuse for what Ephraim did though and he deserves his three match ban. - LFW Sheff Wed Match Report

Last season the Lancashire official showed 77 yellows and eight reds, including Hogan Ephraim at Sheff Wed, in 39 games. His busiest afternoons came at Charlton v Ipswich with five yellows and a red and Shrewsbury v Macclesfield with six yellows. He only booked more than five in a match on that one occasion last season and after that match he finished the campaign by showing just five yellows and no reds in six matches – including three games with no cards at all. His last Barnsley fixture was their 0-0 draw at Stoke last September when three yellow cards were shown.

The season before that, 2006/07, he flashed 96 yellows and nine reds in 34 games which is obviously slightly more. He did one QPR match, the memorable 3-1 win at Leicester with that goal by Marc Nygaard. Six yellow cards shown that day, and a very dodgy late penalty given to Leicester, but still a rating of six and tenth place on the referee league.

Ref: N Swarbrick (Lancashire) 6 - Absolutely terrible in the first half, culminating in the farcical Cullip booking, greatly improved in the second apart from the dodgy late penalty decision, good job that wasn't crucial. - LFW Leicester Match Report

Elsewhere this weekend it’s good to see a few of our old “favourites” knocking around the list. Trevor Kettle is still involved, he’s got Dagenham v Chester this weekend, and I expect Lee Probert to start the season with a flurry of cards in the lunchtime kick off between Scunthorpe and Leeds in League One. Andy D’Urso (Coventry v Norwich), Kevin Friend (Plymouth v Wolves) and Jarnail Singh (Bournemouth v Gillingham) are all listed this weekend and no doubt we’ll have lots more on them in the weeks and months to come. Tuesday night’s trip to Swindon has been given to Richard Beeby, more on him on Monday.