Grant Hegley from Hertfordshire is the man in the middle on Tuesday night as QPR host Blackpool.
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Referee: Grant Hegley (Hertfordshire)
Assistants – Cooper (Kent) and Ford (Leicestershire)
Fourth Official – Young (Bedfordshire)
Good to see Rob Styles back on form at the weekend I thought. What a first class prat that bloke is. For those that didn’t see it, a tackle on Christiano Ronaldo that even he didn’t claim as a foul was awarded as a penalty taking years of Gary Megson’s life. Styles was in a good position to see it and I get the impression, judging by the time it took between him blowing the whistle and actually pointing at the spot, that he knew he’d made an almighty mistake as soon as the breath had left his cheeks.
Of course he could have held his hands up, admitted it and restarted with a drop ball but he decided instead to stand and frantically think of something else he could give for three seconds and then sheepishly point at the spot. The pathetic shrug of the shoulders and forlorn look on his face not the acts of a man who knows very much about what he’s doing. Still, easy to give dodgy penalties at Old Trafford and apologise afterwards isn’t it Rob? A decision so blatantly wrong it even had me sympathising with the ever detestable Gary Megson. Still I suppose in a match between Man Utd and a team managed by Gary Megson, refereed by Rob Styles, there can be few winners.
All dodgy penalties to the home side gratefully received at Loftus Road on Tuesday of course, to hell with this sportsmanship lark. Grant Hegley from Hertfordshire is the man with the whistle and he’s been pretty lenient so far this season with just nine yellows (1.5 a match) in six games and no reds. Two of those games have been in the Championship – Wolves 5 Forest 1 and Coventry 0 Preston 0. He was pretty cool with the cards last season as well, just 32 shown (1.33 a game) in 24 matches and one red. On 13 occasions he showed one card or less in a game and that bodes really well. The most cards he showed in a match in the whole campaign was four and that came in his only QPR fixture – a 2-2 draw at Scunthorpe.
Referee: Grant Hegley (Hertfordshire) 5 Seemed to give a lot of decisions Scunthorpe's way in the first half although in his defence our circus act back four was making stupid challenges time and again. In the second half he was generous with Nygaard on two occasions - Scunthorpe looked to have a good penalty shout and then the Dane could easily have been sent off for a crazy challenge through the back of an opponent. LFW Scunthorpe Match Report
That performance good enough for joint 21st on last season’s referee league. That was his first QPR appointment in three years with the 1-0 home defeat by Sheff Utd in 2004/05 his last prior to the match at Glanford Park. He refereed our memorable 3-2 home win against Port Vale in the promotion season as well. His last Blackpool match was their 2-0 away win at MK Dons during their promotion season 2006/07. He also refereed a 0-0 draw between Pool and Doncaster that same season and a 4-0 defeat for them at Rotherham a year earlier.
Elsewhere it’s interesting, to me at least, that Steve Bratt is back in the Championship – he was on the fast track as a young official until he absolutely annihilated the Plymouth v QPR match last Christmas since when he’s taken a bi more of a back seat in Leagues One and Two. Burnley v Watford for him on Tuesday. I notice Andy D’Urso is back at Sheffield Wednesday again, he seems to get a lot of games up there and is about as popular as a dose of the clap round Hillsborough way. Still if you’re missing our Andy fear not, we have a televised game with Birmingham on Saturday lunch time and guess what…