Refwatch Preview: Shrewsbury (h)
Friday, 18th Dec 2009 15:52

TVOS is back with a look at this week's official.

Watch out for correct goals being disallowed when referee Rob Shoebridge takes to the field at Spotland on Saturday.

The Derbyshire official was the man in the middle at the infamous Bristol City v Crystal Palace game earlier this season, when Palace scored a perfectly legitimate goal, only for Mr Shoebridge and his assistant to rule it hadn’t gone in.

Fans may recall the ball actually hit the supporting post at the back of the goal before bouncing out, but Mr Shoebridge made a terrible faux-pas in disallowing the effort.

Still, anything that winds up Neil Warnock has to be good news!

Rob is in his fourth season on the league list and will be making his fifth visit to Spotland this weekend.

However, it’s coming up to two years since we saw him at a Dale game, with his last appointment in January 2008 when Dale lost 2-0 at home to Lincoln.

Prior to that, he was here for the pre-season friendly with Huddersfield in July 2007, as well as the 4-2 win over Accrington four months earlier in which Glenn Murray missed a first half penalty that would have completed his hat-trick.

We also saw Mr Shoebridge at Spotland in December 2006 for the 1-0 loss to Peterborough, which proved to be Steve Parkin’s last home game as Dale manager.

Rob’s last Shrewsbury match was back in September 2007 when they lost 1-0 at Yeovil in the JPT.

After a quiet first season at this level, Rob started to get quite a lot of Championship appointments in 2007/08, something that has continued up to this term.

He has also been doing a lot of travelling lately and began December with Exeter v Brighton a fortnight ago, followed by Middlesbrough v Blackpool three days later.

REFWORLD PROFILE: http://www.refworld.com/referee/165/1

Other famous Robs