Late refereeing change for Norwich v QPR
Tuesday, 16th Sep 2008 22:16

Rob Shoebridge has replaced Kevin Wright as the listed match official for our Wednesday night trip to Carrow Road.

Norwich City v Queens Park Rangers
Referee: Rob Shoebridge (Derbyshire)
Assistants – Creighton (Berkshire) and Hopkins (Essex)
Fourth Official – Beevor (Suffolk)

The first thing to notify you of is a change to our planned referee tomorrow night – it was originally due to be Kevin Wright of Cambridgeshire but is now Rob Shoebridge of Derbyshire. Before we get to that, three sendings off to discuss from the weekend. First Vidic who got two bookings in the Liverpool Man Utd game – the first for a cynical trip on Robbie Keane as he ran through on goal, the second for an elbow to the back of the head as seen in the Croatia v England game last week but without such bloody consequences. The second John Terry’s dismissal for Chelsea at Man City, since overturned on appeal, and the third Ollie Lancashire on debut for Southampton against QPR on Sunday.

Now as regular readers, hello to you both, will know I don’t like going to a game and seeing a lot of cards handed out but for me Vidic should have been sent off for the first offence at Anfield. Not only was Keane through on the goal but the tackle was cynical and deliberate. I’m getting a little bit sick of the attitude of players done by a piece of skill who haul the opponent back or trip him up completely deliberately and accept a yellow card because it’s better than a goal. Maybe we should start handing out a few reds to shake them from that comfort zone – that’s why I was glad to see John Terry dismissed on Sunday because he knew exactly what he was doing and was ready to accept a yellow card. It’s cynical cheating and it was good to see the look on his face when the red was produced. All this talk of ‘there was a man covering round behind’ misses the point for me – deliberate, cynical treatment can be punished with a red card for me.

Lancashire’s was slightly different as there was never a question of denying a goal scoring opportunity, he was sent off purely for the robustness of his tackle on Delaney. Again the right decision for me, it was late, two footed, high, nowhere near the ball, scissor like in its execution and dangerous. This is the type of tackle that used to go in during the first few minutes of match so defenders could “let the striker know they are there” – putting the feelers out as Ron Atkinson might have said. Again it’s not acceptable to make excuses for players that they’re just testing things out or, in Lancashire’s case, they’re young, inexperienced and making their debut. Ian Holloway said it was a booking at worst, but then Olly came across as quite a bitter man to me through Sky’s coverage of our match so that doesn’t surprise me greatly.

So onto Wednesday and our new referee. Rob Shoebridge from Derbyshire is a relatively new name on the list in this his third full season. So far this season he has shown nine yellows (1.5 a match) and no reds in six matches which is very encouraging. His only Championship game so far this season was Doncaster v Coventry which finished 1-1. Last season he showed 64 yellows (1.88 a game) and no reds in 34 games which again bodes well. The most cards showed in a match was five and on 25 occasions he showed two cards or less. In fact he hasn’t shown a red card to anybody since April 2007 when he sent off Aaron Lescott of Bristol Rovers in a match at Barnet. He managed 80 yellows (3.2 a game) and two reds in 25 matches that season.

As you can tell I’m waffling about statistics and what not – that’s because Wednesday is his first ever QPR match as referee so I have no previous match reports or precedence to call upon. He did however referee Norwich last season when they lost 2-1 at home to Blackpool so we’d certainly take a repeat of that tomorrow, just the one booking in that game by the way.

Elsewhere all but one of the Championship matches took place last night with the four yellows and a red handed out by Darren Deadman at Sheff Utd v Coventry the headline act. Looking further ahead we have Dean Whitestone at Coventry on Saturday, and Lee Mason for the Villa game next Wednesday – he’s on a terrible run of form at the moment but more on that next week.