Haywood takes charge of QPR for first time
Friday, 10th Apr 2009 17:05

Referee Mark Haywood, in his third season on the league list, takes charge of QPR for the first time in his career on Saturday as the R's travel to Turf Moor to face Burnley.

Burnley v QPR
Referee: Mark Haywood (West Yorkshire)
Assistants – England (South Yorkshire) and Roberts (Lancashire)
Fourth Official – Hewitt (North Yorkshire)

Respect
• noun - a feeling of admiration for someone because of their qualities or achievements.

Our man in the middle at Turf Moor is Mark Haywood, a relatively new name on the list with just two seasons of experience behind him. This is the first QPR fixture of his career so far.

So far this season Haywood has shown an encouragingly low 50 yellows (1.51 a game) and four reds in 33 matches. His busiest game of the season so far was the League Cup clash between Macclesfield and Blackpool back in August when he booked two and sent off a player from each side inside two minutes. Still, from the look of his stats he is a very reasonable and lenient official.

Ten of his matches this season have been in the Championship including Burnley’s 1-0 win against Reading at Turf Moor in October – no cards were shown in that game. He has shown just 13 yellows and no reds in those ten games and has failed to show a single card in a match in three of them.

Last season he showed 71 yellows (2.03 a match) and three reds in 35 matches. Six of those were in the Championship including Burnley’s 1-1 home draw with Leicester in December.

Elsewhere nice to see Trevor Kettle dusting off his red card at Leyton Orient during the week – testament to the job Geraint Williams has done at Brisbane Road that the O’s came from 2-0 down with their ten men to draw with promotion chasing Leeds. Our old mate Stuart Attwell, kicked off the Premiership list for the rest of this season after a series of cock ups, has Scunthorpe and Huddersfield on Friday night. Andy D’Urso has the big Preston v Blackpool derby match, Steve Tanner drops out of the Premiership for Sheff Wed v Derby, Jarnail Singh is back on the list for the first time in a while with Rotherham v Notts County.

Looking ahead to Monday and it’s Darren Deadman again for our match with Sheff Wed. More on him on Sunday evening.