D'Urso referees Birmingham v QPR
Friday, 3rd Oct 2008 02:07

The visit to Birmingham on Saturday brings up against a man we've got a long history with, referee Andy D'Urso.

Birmingham City v Queens Park Rangers
Referee: Andy D’Urso (Essex)
Assistants – Rushton (Staffordshire) and Smallwood (Cheshire)
Fourth Official – Bratt (West Midlands)

The thing that often disturbs me most about refereeing is the people making the appointments and the decisions. I spoke in the last column about the sheer mind blowing stupidity of charging Adie Boothroyd with abusing the match official who awarded a goal that went four yards wide of the post and there have been further examples this week. David Moyes is charged by the FA for making comments to Alan Wiley at Stoke when Wiley himself admits the decision he gave to deny Everton a penalty was a load of nonsense. Nothing happens to Wiley or in fact Rob Styles whose penalty decision at Old Trafford last week was an embarrassment to the sport and yet was met at the time by the referee shrugging and not caring very much. Styles is back in the Premiership this weekend, spared any punishment for his error because “he apologised and is in good form” according to his bosses. No such let off for Boothroyd and Moyes despite apologies and who in the name of God thinks a referee making the kind of decision Styles did last week is in good form.

This respect thing has to run two ways – referees have to respect our game if they want the same treatment in return. From what I’ve seen of Steve Bennett, Mike Riley, Rob Styles and others over the past fortnight there is a distinct lack of respect of anything other than their own egos from the referees themselves.

On Saturday we face a daunting trip to Birmingham, marshalled by our old friend Andy D’Urso. The immediate reaction among QPR fans whenever he is named as the referee is to groan and recount past tales of horror, of which there are plenty, but in recent times D’Urso has refereed QPR matches very well so it might not be such bad news after all.

D’Urso has started this season in pretty lenient form with just 11 yellows (1.375 a game) and no reds shown in his first eight matches – four of those games have been in our league with eight yellows shown in those. There have been only two home wins in D’Urso’s eight matches so far and while QPR fans may see that as a good omen, they will be less happy to hear that he has already refereed Birmingham once this season and they won 4-0 against Wycombe in the League Cup. Last season he showed 100 yellows (2.32 per match) and five reds in 43 games which is pretty low. One of those red cards came in one of his two QPR matches, against Stoke at Loftus Road when he sent off Andy Griffin for a poor tackle on Hogan Ephraim. He had nothing to referee in his one other QPR match of the season, the 5-1 mauling at West Brom. He was rewarded for his form with two play off matches at the end of the season.

Referee: Andy D'Urso (Essex) 4 Fantastic from a QPR point of view but two big decisions went against Stoke incorrectly here. Griffin should never have been sent off and Agyemang was well offside for the third goal. Add to that the letting off of Rowlands and Vine without bookings for tackles that really warranted them in the first half and it would be fair to say we’ve had the rub of the green from the official this week.LFW Stoke Match Report

Referee: Andy D'Urso (Essex) 8 - Nothing to referee really with only one team competing but did well overall. Let Moore off without a booking for a bad tackle that should have received a card but I'd rather see cards stay in the referee's pocket where possible and those that were awarded today were deserved. Well done - an easy afternoon though truth be told. LFW West Brom Match Report

Another low average in 2006/07 as he showed 99 yellows (2.25 a game) and four reds in 44 games – that included two QPR away wins at Southampton and Luton before Christmas. An average rating of 6.5 meant joint seventh on the referee league. He refereed his last Birmingham league match that season as well, a 1-0 defeat at Preston in the final game of the regular seasn.

Referee - Andy D'Urso 8 - One of his all time best ever games I think! Just two bookings, both deserved and apart from that play was allowed to flow, free kicks were evenly distributed, competence and common sense was shown. Unbelievable really. Should have booked Rasiak for his outrageous piece of play acting near the end and failed to clamp down on some pretty blatant time wasting from QPR but other than that disturbingly good. LFW Southampton Match Report

Ref: A D'Urso (Essex) 5 - Kept his cards in his pocket which makes a welcome change, and tried to allow the game to flow however at least one of the two first half incidents should have resulted in a Luton penalty and where all that stoppage time came from at the end of the first half only he knows. LFW Luton Match Report

Three QPR games in 2005/06 and plenty more cards shown in keeping with a higher average of 111 yellows (3.36 a game) and nine reds in 33 games – seven of hose yellows came in QPR v Crystal Palace at Loftus Road. An average rating of 4.66 from three QPR games refereed that season placed him 23rd on the referee league.

Ref: A D'Urso (Essex) - 6 - The usual number of cards from Mr D'Urso, unfortunately apart from Furlong we can't really moan about ours. And to be fair to him he could quite easily have sent Bircham off as well. His performance faded into the background when compared with our own players. LFW Palace Match Report

Referee: A D'Urso (Essex) - 7 - It's difficult to judge this because he seemed to be giving everything to QPR and I'm biased! At the end of the day I can see why the Wednesday fans were moaning but they were masters of their own downfall a lot of the time, stupid fouls, daft tackles, all round incompetence and idiocy on show from some of their players. Lots of them seemed to think they were still in League One and if they continue to show naivety on Saturday's scale they'll soon be back there. QPR's goal was a prime example, Lomas was going nowhere half time was fast approaching, just stand up and keep him there - but no Glenn Whelen has to go sliding in. I mean how thick is he? What's D'Urso meant to do, make allowances for lack of a brain and play on? LFW Sheff Wed Match Report

Ref: A D'Urso (Essex) 1 - And that's being complimentary. D'Urso came into the game with a bad reputation and managed to leave W12 with an even worse one!! Quite unbelievable really. He couldn't control players, he unnecessarily blew up when he could have easily let the game flow and he was assisted by two god-awful linesmen. Henderson should have seen red but instead only received a yellow. No doubt his report will be highly critical of the crowd so we can expect some penalties coming our way too. LFW Watford Match Report

Elsewhere I expect cards when Phil Dowd takes charge of the Barnsley and Doncaster derby, interesting that he still shows few signs of making a return to Premiership action yet – must have really upset somebody. Our old foe Trevor Kettle is back in the Championship after an absence of several weeks, he’s ruining Swansea v Wolves this weekend so commiserations to everybody that has paid to go and see that. Lower down Jarnail Singh, the man who last week at Shrewsbury played on through two head injuries so severe that one Bradford player later collapsed on the pitch, has Colchester v Bristol Rovers and Andy Hall has Huddersfield v Leicester. Peterborough v Leeds has been given an early kick off on police advice, Premiership referee Steve Bennett has that one after his poor handling of Wigan v Man City last weekend.