Lancashire referee Graham Salisbury is in charge on Saturday as QPR travel to Scunthorpe looking for their first league win of the campaign. The R's have lost all three fixtures with this referee so far.

Scunthorpe United v QPR
Referee – Graham Salisbury (Lancashire)
Assistants – Dexter (Leicestershire) and Murphy (Nottinghamshire)
Fourth Official – Lawson (Lincolnshire)

QPR will be hoping for a change of fortune at the hands of Mr Salisbury this weekend – while he has been pretty decent in his three QPR appointments to date Rangers are yet to win with him in charge. This is his ninth season on the full league list as a referee, and first QPR game for the best part of three years.

So far this season Salisbury has done five games, one in the Championship, and shown 11 yellows (2.2 a game average) and a red. The red came on Tuesday night when Sheffield Wednesday striker Francis Jeffers was sent off for striking out at an opponent off the ball, but bizarrely left the field bleeding from a head wound of his own. Sheff Wed have had little sympathy with him – placing him on the transfer list the day after the match.

Last season he showed 88 yellows (2.4444 a game) and five reds in 36 matches. Eight of those games were in the Championship where his average was higher at 3.375 yellow cards a game.

His last QPR match was Gary Waddock’s final game in charge in September 2006 as the R’s crashed out of the League Cup with a 3-2 defeat at lowly Port Vale. Ironic really considering he was back at Vale Park just last week, sending off Francis Jeffers in another disaster for a Championship side on that ground. Although QPR were pretty rank on the evening Salisbury got an encouraging mark of eight on the LFW match report, good enough for joint second on the referee league that season.

Ref: G Salisbury (Lancashire) 8 Allowed a combative game to take place without unnecessary interruptions and stoppages. No choice with the two bookings but kept the cards away when other more picky refs may have gone mad. Played a very good advantage rule throughout the match. Well done. LFW Port Vale Match Report

Rangers have actually never won when Salisbury has been in charge of them. His other two QPR appointments saw us crash out of the League Cup in rather more illustrious surroundings in 2004 at Aston Villa, and then back in 2002 we were hammered by Peterborough 4-1 at London Road and Salisbury sent off Danny Shittu for two bookings on his debut just hours after he had signed for the R’s from Charlton. Overall it’s played three lost three and Salisbury has shown three yellows and a red to QPR players and two yellows to the opposition.

His last Scunthorpe match was at the end of last season when they beat Brighton 2-0 at Glanford Park in League One – four yellows and a red to Brighton’s Matt Heath were shown, one of Scunthorpe’s goals was a penalty. He also refereed their 3-0 defeat at Oldham before Christmas.

Elsewhere this weekend in form Premiership referee Martin Atkinson has been trusted with the Forest v Derby match which has a lunchtime kick off on Saturday on police advice. Our old mate Andy Hall has Exeter v MK Dons, Kevin Friend has the televised match between Peterborough and Palace on Monday.

Photo: Action Images

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