Rookie referee Craig Pawson is the man in the middle on Tuesday night as QPR face League Two side Accrington Stanley at home in the second round of the League Cup.
QPR v Accrington Stanley
Referee – Craig Pawson (South Yorkshire)
Assistants – Davies (Hampshire) and Yerby (Kent)
Fourth Official – McLaughlin (Bedfordshire)
First of all it would be remiss of LFW not to wish all the very best to Premiership referee Mark Halsey who underwent surgery on his throat cancer last week. Halsey, a QPR fan, is one of the very best referees we have and knew of his diagnosis when he took charge of Everton v Arsenal last weekend. I know from my own experiences with my Dad just what a horrible illness it is. The news comes just six months after his wife Michelle was diagnosed with leukaemia which is an impossible scenario to imagine. May he return to action soon, fit and healthy.
Onto Tuesday night and the League Cup clash between Queens Park Rangers and Accrington Stanley. It is the first meeting between the sides for almost half a century and it is a first QPR appointment for referee Craig Pawson. Last season, his first on the league list, he showed 58 yellows (2.52 a game) and three reds in 23 matches. That included two Accrington matches – a 1-1 home draw with Notts County in September when two yellows were shown and both goals came in injury time, and a 2-0 win at Macclesfield where a player from each side saw yellow.
So far this season he has shown four yellows in four matches, including the weekend Championship clash between Derby and Plymouth. That was his second Championship match so far following Coventry’s 2-1 home win against Blackpool last season. His busiest game so far has been a five yellow and two red haul in a game between Tranmere and Southend last season.
Meanwhile, despite saying t would be a good couple of weeks before he was returned to the list, Rob Shoebridge is back on Tuesday night in charge of Peterborough v Ipswich in the cup ten days after his cataclysmic error in failing to award Crystal Palace a perfectly legitimate goal at Ashton Gate. Referee’s chief Keith Hackett said at the time: “There's no doubt he'll be fretting away but we will give him the support to rebuild him and get him back fresh for his next appointment. I think it will be a couple of weeks before we bring him back. In the meantime he'll have the appropriate discussion and debate in order to analyze very carefully why it was missed. He probably was out of position.” Obviously that does not take long, unless he is to be removed and changed late in the day.
Elsewhere in the League Cup there’s a number of infamous names from QPR’s recent past in action – Andy Hall has Leeds v Watford, Kevin Friend has Gillingham v Blackburn