Nottingham official Russell Booth is the man in the middle at Oakwell on Saturday, taking charge of a QPR game against Barnsley for the second time in his career.

Barnsley v QPR
Referee – Russell Booth (Nottinghamshire)
Assistants – Marsden (Lancashire) and Merchant (Staffordshire)
Fourth Official – Whiteley (West Yorkshire)

Russell Booth takes charge of a QPR Barnsley fixture for the second time in his career this weekend – previously he refereed our 1-0 home win against the Tykes in 2006 when Martin Rowlands got the only, rather scruffy, goal of the game. QPR fans will be hoping for a repeat of the scoreline from Booth’s previous QPR appointment this season when they travel to Barnsley on Saturday – the R’s beat Preston 4-0 with Booth at the helm in October, and the referee’s mark of eight out of ten places him joint second on the referee league so far this season.

Referee: Russell Booth (Nottinghamshire) 8 Hard to think of a decision he got wrong and gave the game every chance to blossom into a spectacle with plenty of advantage and now cards. While that is an admirable and appreciated stance to take I did feel that once or twice he kept the cards in his pocket when one really should have been shown – particularly to Wallace for clattering Buzsaky and Collins for hacking down Taarabt in the second half. Still, I’d rather a game with too few cards than too many and Booth was very good overall. LFW Preston match report

So far this season Booth, who joined the league list in 2004, has refereed 34 games showing 71 yellows (2.088 a game) and three reds in the process. His biggest card haul in a single game is five yellows and a red in the Norwich v Southampton League One battle. Thirteen of those matches, and 32 of those cards, have been in the Championship but this is his first appointment with Barnsley this season.

Last season he showed 52 yellows and three reds in 23 games including seven yellows in a game between Luton and Grimsby and six yellows and a red in a fixture between Stockport and Millwall. He has shown one card or less in a game on 16 occasions in the last two seasons, including seven this year and is on the whole a reasonable official who normally gives the game every chance.

His last QPR fixture was in 2006, a 1-0 home win against Barnsley with Martin Rowlands getting the goal. Four yellow cards were shown, three of them to QPR players. He was given a mark of five by LFW for his performance which was good enough for joint 16th position on the referee league that year.

Referee: R J Booth 5 Not bad but not the best. Missed a lot of fouls from both teams, including what looked like a nailed on Barnsley penalty for a push by Milanese, but deserves credit for a good advantage played in the lead up to the goal. LFW Barnsley Match Report

His last Barnsley game was last season at Hillsborough, where the Tykes won the South Yorkshire derby against Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 and picked up four bookings along the way.

Elsewhere Andy D’Urso is back in the Championship for the first time in a few weeks to try and keep a lid on the Doncaster v Scunthorpe derby game – they really don’t like each other – while Kevin Friend drops out of the Premiership for Watford v Reading. Trevor Kettle has Norwich v Gillingham, Stuart Attwell Wycombe v Swindon.

Photo courtesy of refworld.com.

Photo: Action Images

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