Kevin Friend, traditionally very much a friend of whoever is playing at home, is the mn in the middle for our trip to Plymouth on Saturday. QPR won 4-1 earlier in the season with Friend in charge.
Plymouth Argyle v Queens Park Rangers
Referee: Kevin Friend (Leicestershire)
Assistants – Johnson (Somerset) and Matthews (Wiltshire)
Fourth Official – Philpott (Cornwall)
Respect
• noun - a feeling of admiration for someone because of their qualities or achievements.
Regular readers, hello to both of you, will know that this weekend’s official Kevin Friend is a man who regularly features in this column. He has become known to QPR fans as a bit of a homer over the past few years – terrific to us at Loftus Road, pretty evil whenever we have him for an away game. Already this season QPR have beaten Southampton 4-1 at Loftus Road with the Saints reduced to ten men in that match. My heart always sinks when I see his name listed next to a QPR away fixture and sadly we have him for a road game on Saturday. Friend just always seems to favour a home side whenever he referees, giving decisions to keep the crowd happy, and that’s not good news for Rangers as Home Park can be quiet a vociferous place even with a small amount of fans inside.
To make matters worse we always seem to get linesmen from Cornwall, Devon and Somerset for this game. Wiltshire seems like a million miles away in comparison.
So far this season Friend has shown 60 yellows (3.1578 a match) and three reds in 19 matches, including four yellows and a red in the QPR v Southampton match and five yellows in Plymouth’s 2-2 draw with Wolves at Home Park earlier this season. Four and one represents his biggest haul this season although he did show six yellows cards in a derby match between Oldham and Huddersfield. His rating of six in the Southampton game good enough for joint eighth on the current referee league.
Referee: Kevin Friend (Leicestershire) 6 Little choice with the sending off in my opinion but got a bit card happy in the second half and Southampton can count themselves very unfortunate not to have the Stewart goal disallowed. Pretty home orientated as always I thought. LFW Southampton Match Report
referee league last season with a rating of eight for his part in our 4-2 defeat at home against Burnley. In total he showed 100 yellows (2.439 a game) and 11 reds in 41 matches last season, including a ridiculous eight and two total in a Millwall v Oldham game where a player was sent off for over celebrating a goal.
Referee – Kevin Friend (Leicestershire) 8 Didn’t really complain about him all night so he must have been doing alright. LFW Burnley Match Report
In 2006/07 Friend took charge of two QPR games, at home to Leeds and away to Birmingham – QPR drew 2-2 and lost 2-1 respectively. Friend earned an average mark of five across the two games and finished 16th in the referee league.
Referee: Mr K A Friend 5 Well we were right, he is a home town decision maker. Apart from the scandalous decision against Stewart in the first half just about everything went Rangers way, including a highly debatable penalty. God forbid we have him for an away game again this season, I had just about all I could take at Bramall Lane last time. LFW Leeds Match Report
Ref: K Friend (Leicestershire) 5 Usual series of bizarre decisions but certainly this wasn't the worst game I've ever seen him have. I'd like to know his justification for penalising Blackstock, Smith and others for backing into Jaidi when he crawled all over them while at the other end Birmingham again got the decision when Stewart crawled all over their forwards. Deserves a pat on the back for telling Jerome where to get off in injury time though. LFW Birmingham Match Report
In 2005/06 Friend was in charge of our 3-2 win at Sheffield United but only earned a mark of three for his performance and finished 26th in that year’s referee league. Ref: K Friend (Leicestershire) 3 Ahh Kevin, you certainly are not a friend of mine, or any away team for that matter. I find myself writing exactly the same thing about him as I did after the last time he refereed QPR, at Derby last season. Loves an easy ride, loves a home side. Gave many, many questionable decisions against Rangers, booked four when really only Langley deserved it and even that was his first offence. Allowed Montgomery to hack his way through the Rangers team without booking him, failed to spot Ade Akinbiyi's blatant foul for the Bircham own goal and awarded a terribly, disgustingly harsh penalty against Evatt after half time. Can we please have this guy at Loftus Road one day? I want to be on the other side of his cowardice. LFW Sheff Utd Match Report
Elsewhere there’s a rare collection of the bad, sad and incompetent knocking around league games this weekend. Phil Dowd drops a level for Burnley v Southampton, Andy Hall has Palace v Doncaster and Trevor Kettle has Reading v Norwich. Lower down Steve Bratt, the man that made such a pig’s ear of Plymouth v QPR last season, has Grimsby v Shrewsbury.