Andy Penn from the West Midlands is our referee at Watford on Monday night, just as he was for this fixture last season when the R's were beaten 3-0 and Watford were awarded a dubious penalty.

Watford v Queens Park Rangers
Referee: Andy Penn (West Midlands)
Assistants – Smith (Surrey) and Whitton (Essex)
Fourth Official – Wright (Cambridgeshire)

This column is a waste of time if refereeing appointments are going to change all the time – nobody seems sure why Keith Hill wasn’t in charge on Saturday but Phill Gibbs did a reasonable job in his absence.

One growing trend I’ve noticed this year is giving a referee the same fixture he had the previous season. Whether this is a deliberate move or some quirk of the appointment system I’m not sure but it’s an idea being used in Rugby League as well. The theory being players get to know the referees, referees get to know the players, and a better understanding develops. Hull and Bradford had Ashley Klein in charge of all four of their games the season before last to, well to be honest, no affect at all.

So we come to Monday night at Watford where for the second year running we have West Midlands official Andy Penn in charge. And on the face of it that’s not good news because as well as the atrocious QPR performance at Vicarage Road last season the referee was a pile of steamy stuff as well, getting a rating of two and finishing bottom of the referee league after awarding Watford a very dubious first half penalty and sending off Fitz Hall. Although as that suspension meant Gorkss and Stewart were finally paired together and stayed for the rest of the season perhaps we should thank him and hope for more of the same this week.

Referee: Andy Penn (W Midlands) 2 Very poor all the way through. A silly little man with stupid facial hair and an apparently terminal dislike of QPR. The sending off looked harsh, the penalty was an absolute joke and his general handling of the game throughout left a lot to be desired. The two linesmen had to be seen to be believed. Almost as bad as QPR but not quite. LFW Watford Match Report

He has only refereed QPR twice before this and Rangers players need to be on their guard this Saturday because he sent one of our players off on both occasions. Both games were at Cheltenham, the first in October 2002 when we drew 1-1 and Clarke Carlisle was dismissed, the second in the League Cup in 2003 when we won 2-1 but Paul Furlong got his marching orders. The Carlisle red card was after an altercation with Julian Alsopp and with players and staff on both sides mystified the red card was later rescinded when the referee admitted he had made an error.

So far this season he has shown a very encouraging 26 yellows (1.529 a game) and no reds in 17 games. He has kept the cards in his pocket in four of his last six matches and shown just ten yellows in six Championship matches so far. Last season he showed 55 yellows (1.89 a game) and three reds in 29 games which is again a very low average.

Elsewhere in this midweek round of fixtures there is a smattering of interesting refereeing appointments across the Football League. Alan Wiley drops down from the Premiership for the South Yorkshire derby between Doncaster and Sheff Wed while our old enemy Andy Hall has Ipswich v Peterborough. Kevin Friend has Reading v palace while Rob Shoebridge, of ghost goal fame and bottom of this season’s referee league, has Middlesbrough v Blackpool.

Photo: Action Images

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