For the third time already this season and the fifth time in the last 12 months we have Peter Walton refereeing our match on Tuesday.
Cardiff City v Queens Park Rangers
Referee – Peter Walton (Northamptonshire)
Assistants – Cairns and Flynn
Fourth Official – East
Well I don’t quite know what we’ve done to deserve the pleasure, but it’s Peter Walton again for us on Tuesday – his third QPR appointment of the season already and fifth in the last calendar year. We wouldn’t be moaning if he was any good of course, but he’s not, and his pathological fear of awarding QPR a penalty under any circumstances is really starting to wear thin now.
Yes I am aware that he awarded us a spot kick in the game against Norwich at Loftus Road earlier this season – but that only came after two blatant appeals had been waved away and he was right back on form at Crystal Palace a few weeks later with another dire performance. An average mark of four so far, leaves him right down the bottom of the referee league.
Referee - Peter Walton (Northamptonshire) 4 - Strange bookings for Dublin and Vine, a poor decision not to give Sahar a penalty in the first half and an incompetent, shambolic decision to deny Vine one in the second before awarding the lesser of the three claims. Then went a little bit mad with the stoppage time at the end. He is a very poor official. And he looks like that mouse from Animaniacs. LFW Norwich Match Report
Referee: Peter Walton (Northamptonshire) 4 - What on earth happened? 70 odd minutes of perfectly reasonable refereeing followed by 20 minutes of QPR having everything waved away and Palace getting free kicks when opponents coughed near them. There were some really scandalous decisions in those closing moments. An easy referee to dislike. LFW Palace Match Report
Rangers had Vine booked in the Norwich game and Leigertwood carded at Palace and both decisions seemed very harsh. So far this season he has shown 82 (3.03 a game) yellow cards and four reds in 27 games. He was in action on Sunday in the Man Utd Spurs cup match where Michael Dawson was sent off for handball denying a goal scoring opportunity and much as it pains me to say it the decision looked reasonable enough. No doubt my Step Dad will be on the phone at some point this week arguing with me over that. His biggest haul so far has been six yellows and a red in the first leg of Chelsea and Everton’s League Cup semi final.
Last season he showed 128 (3.2 a game) yellows and four reds in 40 matches. That included another two QPR matches of course – a home win against Colchester and an annihilation at Southend. Those performances were only good enough for an average of three and another lowly placing in the referee league.
Referee: P Walton (Northamptonshire) 2 - It's obviously all been said already above, worst of the season so far for me. Completely inept from the 15th minute onwards. Unbelievably bad at times. And he looks like that mouse from Animaniacs. LFW Colchester Match Report
Ref: P Walton (Northamptonshire) 4 - A terrible, terrible referee. Consistently awful. Nothing to do with the result tonight of course, would maybe have been 5-1 if he'd awarded the penalty when he should have done, but the defeat was all Rangers' doing. Still, another terrible performance from him - allowed Sodje to get away with whatever he liked, decided that injury time at 4-0 was the time to start booking players - just a total moron. LFW Southend Match Report
And he looks like that mouse from Animaniacs.
Elsewhere Uriah Rennie has Preston v West Brom and Mike Dean, top of the referee league so far this season, has Sheff Utd and Watford at Bramall Lane. Lower down Trevor Kettle will be taking his incredible list of cards awarded to Doncaster v Hartlepool with a view to extending it to even more ridiculous levels, while Phil Dowd has clearly upset somebody again – he’s got Lincoln v Mansfield. Andy Hall has Morecambe v Wrexham, maybe somebody will cast him out into the bay in a boat with no oars. We can only hope.