Deadman referees Bristol City and QPR again
Thursday, 28th Aug 2008 23:03

Just as happened at Loftus Road last season, Darren Deadman will take charge of Bristol City v QPR this weekend.

Bristol City v Queens Park Rangers
Referee: Darren Deadman (Cambridgeshire)
Assistants – Laver (Hampshire) and Phipps (Surrey)
Fourth Official – Johnson (Oxfordshire)

One thing I have noticed creeping into games this week is my old bug bear about poor time keeping, and more specifically the stoppage time board that goes up towards the end of each half. The board was introduced after, although probably not as a direct result of, several incidents where injury time was played until Manchester United equalised and was intended to clear up a situation where only the referee knew how much time was to be added and he could ostensibly play for as long as he liked. In the case of United’s game at Loftus Road in 1996 that was until the second reading of the classified football results.

My original understanding of the stoppage time board going up was that if you wanted to add three and a half minutes on you put the board up to say there would be four minutes (i.e. no more than four minutes) added on. This quickly morphed into “a minimum of four minutes” and now we’re into a situation where the time displayed on the board bears little resemblence to the amount of stoppages there have been in the game and the number on the board then is then in turn completely ignored by the referee. Take Coventry City for example, who equalised against Newcastle on Tuesday night three and a half minutes into two minutes of advertised stoppage time. Or Leeds United who scored in the sixth of four added minutes in their play off semi final against Carlisle last season, a goal that eventually took them to the final.

I can accept adding more time on top for an injury but at Coventry in the week the referee seemed to be happy to carry on playing simply because the home side was attacking. If it does say in the rule books “a game is made up of two halves of 45 minutes unless you want to see what happens from a long throw in which case keep playing” then I’m afraid it’s a chapter that has passed me by. One is left wondering just what the point of the stoppage time board is at all if the referee is just going to play what he likes anyway.

Personally I’d like to see the Rugby League system installed where the man with the watch is in the stands and he sounds hooter when the time is up - although as ever with Rugby League a very good idea is ruined in that sport by their propensity to put a doddery old northerner in charge of it all and you end up with situations like Huddersfield v Bradford earlier this season where the referee called time off with half a minute to go, the old geezer in the stand missed the call and sounded the horn thirty seconds later regardless. As on pitch fights go it was a decent one.

Far easier to implement in our game is a lesser idea whereby the referee holds both hands up in the air when he has stopped his watch - the same signal Rugby league officials use to call time off. That way if he’s advertised two minutes of stoppage time we can clearly see when there is going to be more than that because at some point in the two minutes he will have held his hands aloft to signal that his watch is stopped. very quick, simple and easy and it will save the hassle we had at the Ricoh on Tuesday and make the board relevent again.

In the meantime the man with the watch at Ashton Gate on Saturday will be Darren Deadman from Cambridgeshire. Deadman is still a relatively new name on the list after starting in the league during the 2005/06 season. He has started this season with two League One fixtures and Cheltenham v Stoke in the League Cup - nine yellow cards in those three matches. Last season he showed 101 yellows (3.15 a game) and five reds in 32 matches only seven of which were in the Championship. Deadman was in charge of this fixture at Loftus Road last season and QPR fans would certainly love another 3-0 win this weekend. A mark of six out of ten in that match good enough for joint fourteenth position on the referee league.

Referee: Darren Deadman (Cambridgeshire) 6 His record seems to suggest a more laid back, less fussy approach this season than last and that proved to be the case. Allowed a lot of physical contact to go unchecked and for the most part that was welcome, although the decision to allow Adebola free reign to physically attack Lee Camp in the first half was a strange one and almost cost us a goal. Hard to argue with the four cards shown. LFW Bristol City Match Report

In 2006/07 Deadman showed a whopping 136 yellows (4.39 a match) and 12 reds in 31 matches. That included a game between QPR and Hull at Loftus Road, John Gregory’s first in charge, that resulted in a 2-0 win for the R’s and six yellow cards. Again a mark of sixth, tenth position on that season’s referee league.

Referee: D Deadman (Cambridgeshire) 6 Mr Deadman booked six men, three from each side in a far from dirty game. Paul Jones was booked for time wasting towards the end - surely a similar punishment should have been handed to the opposition in the first half? He missed a number of fouls, particularly defenders man-handling attackers. LFW Hull Match Report

He’s a little bit by the book, fussy and card happy for my liking but he mellowed last season and dropped his average booking total by a whole card a match and as his experience and confidence grows so does the quality of his refereeing. Here’s hoping for further improvements this season.

Elsewhere this weekend keep an eye on Watford v Ipswich on Saturday night - Lee Probert is in charge of that one and after being criminally useless for years he actually had a good season last term, it will be interesting to see if he keeps that up. Further down the ladder Andy Hall has Peterborough v Hartlepool while Premiership official Steve Bennett has dropped down to take charge of MK Dons v Swindon. Interesting also to see that Lee Mason has been dropped to league Two Lincoln v Grimsby following his dire performance at Charlton last weekend.