Richard Beeby returns for his second Loftus Road appointment this season as Barnsley arrive in W12
Imagine my disappointment when I rushed home from a vitally important council meeting on Monday night (proper work you understand, I don’t go to those things out of choice) to catch Andy Hall’s massacre of Crewe v Leeds only to find he’d been pulled from the fixture. No matter, his replacement was Kevin Friend and we all know the view he takes on a game, particularly in relation to decisions in favour of the home team.
The save by Ben Rix of Crewe to prevent Leeds going two nil up was breathtaking. A shot hit from the edge of the area with real venom, and it took a deflection on the way, so to keep it out with a sprawling left handed save down in the bottom corner really takes some doing. Shame he wasn’t the goalkeeper really. Friend had a good look, confirmed that the player was in fact on the home side and waved it away for a corner. The most blatant hand ball on the goal line I’ve seen since, well since last Saturday actually.
The QPR players, management and a good portion of the fans left Bramall Lane apoplectic with rage last week after Kilgallon’s last minute effort to keep the ball out and prevent Rangers taking a point. Normally I’d be the first one to sound off but to be honest from my seat I thought he’d headed it and on the replays afterwards I haven’t seen anything to change my mind really. I’m yet to see conclusive proof that it was a handball, although the reaction of the QPR player and the look on the faces of the QPR fans sitting closer to the goal than me tell me all I need to know I think.
The reaction of the referee said a lot for me as well – he was bricking himself. You could tell by the look on his face that he hadn’t had a clear view of it but thought it was a penalty. Surrounded by QPR players he certainly didn’t look very confident in his explanation and I thought at one stage he was going to do an old referee trick, come across and speak to the linesman and then give it. Sadly from a QPR point of view the linesman, who was an absolute disgrace all afternoon, was standing there with a big grin on his face enthusiastically telling Buzsaky that the ball had hit the player’s cheek.Nigel Miller has Rochdale v Bradford this week.
We are treated to a second helping of Richard Beeby at Loftus Road this season for the visit of Barnsley. Beeby was in charge for the thoroughly entertaining 0-0 draw at home to Sheffield Wednesday earlier this season.
Ref: Richard Beeby (Northamptonshire) 7 - Failed to clamp down on Grant's time wasting in the second half, and let a couple of tackles go without bookings when they probably warranted them. The two cards he did give were correct and overall this wasn't too bad a display. LFW Sheff Wed Match Report
That performance was good enough to get him up to fourth in the referee league this season.
So far this season Beeby has booked 40 (1.81 a match) in 22 matches which is an encouragingly low average. Just two red cards have been shown so far. This is his first Barnsley match of the season but he had them twice last season – a 2-0 defeat by Sunderland at Oakwell and a 1-0 defeat at Preston. Barnsley had keeper Nick Colgan sent off after just eight minutes in the defeat at Deepdale – our own Dave Agyemang scored the subsequent winner.
Elsewhere Jarnail Singh has Yeovil v Oldham, Trevor Kettle will be dolling out the cards at Barnet v Peterborough. Kettle has already passed the 100 yellow card mark from just 25 games and recently booked seven and sent one off at Barnsley v Stoke. Prior to that he booked eight in his previous game, eight in the game before that, seven in the game before that and seven in the game before that. That’s 37 yellow cards in four matches. The man is a remorseless machine. Uriah Rennie had a harsh looking red card in his hand, again, on Wednesday night at Newcastle and he has more opportunity to ruin people’s afternoons at Plymouth v Southampton on Saturday and then, my God what a carve up this could be, at Millwall v Forest on Wednesday.