Durham-based referee Andrew Kitchen is the man in charge of Saturday’s televised home game with Charlton – he took the Addicks’ play-off final win in May.

Referee >>> Andrew Kitchen (Durham), QPR are yet to win in five appointments with this referee.

Assistants >>> Shaun Hudson (Tyne and Wear) and George Byrne (Suffolk)

Fourth Official >>> Stephen Parkinson (Watford)

History

Watford 0 QPR 0, Saturday November 30, 2024, Championship

Rangers should have had a penalty as well. From one of several first half set pieces they were able to cause problems from by sending the three big boys up from the back, Liam Morrison set about shielding a ball in the Watford box only for Ryan Porteous to give it a reach around (giggity) and bat the ball away with his arm. Not a difficult decision to get right for a referee staring straight at it with an unobstructed view. Or an assistant referee, for that matter, on his side of the pitch. A handball so obvious the QPR players stopped playing and appealed as one.

Rookie referee Andrew Kitchen, who gave Burnley so much on our recent visit to Turf Moor he may as well have pulled a Claret shirt on the taken the free kicks himself, once again seemed to prioritise an easy afternoon over making decisions that might upset a home crowd. Moments later, same player (Porteous), same offence (deliberate handball), immediate free kick awarded – because it was miles from goal, easy to give, and nobody would complain. What was a yellow card and wasn’t a yellow card was a cloudy issue all day, based largely around whether you were the home team or the away: Paul Smyth deliberately interrupts a counter from a QPR corner by fouling lively sub Vata, yellow card; Watford do the same from one of their corners moments later, word on the run. Not a brave referee, and not one you want refereeing your away games, but you can’t miss the chances Rangers missed and come away blaming the officials for not getting a result.

Watford: Bachmann 7; Porteous 7, Sierralta 6 (Vata 46, 7), Pollock 7; Andrews 6 (Ngakia 65, 6), Sissoko 5 (Ince 79, 6), Louza 7, Larouci 6 (Ebosele 65, 6); Kayembe 5 (Baah 46, 6), Bayo 5, Chekvetadze 6

Subs not used: Bond, Dwomoh, Doumbia, Morris

Yellow Cards: Sierralta 34, (foul), Pollock 54 (foul)

QPR: Nardi 7; Dunne 7, Cook 7, Morrison 6, Paal 5 (Fox 71, 5); Madsen 5 (Varane 64, 7), Field 7, Morgan 6 (Andersen 72, 6); Smyth 7 (Ashby 71, 5), Celar 6, Saito 7 (Dixon-Bonner 90+2,-)

Subs Not Used: Santos, Bennie, Kolli, Walsh

Yellow Cards: Madsen 2 (foul), Smyth 57 (foul), Field 88 (foul)

Referee – Andrew Kitchen (Durham) 4 Distinctly home orientated. Again.

Burnley 0 QPR 0, Saturday October 26, 2024, Championship

One of Lloyd’s late forays might have yielded a dangerous free kick Rangers could have put into the box, and got an opponent on a yellow card. Troubling exposed centre backs on a counter attack, he was very obviously pulled pack – you could see the stretched shirt in the defender’s hand and everything. Referee Andrew Kitchen played on. Not even a free kick.

Koki Saito, tripped by his full back in front of the away end, asked to get to his feet, allowing Burnley to break through Koleosho, tripped by his full back in front of the home end, and immediately awarded a free kick. Paul Smyth bumped off the ball for one you could debate, got up, retook possession, was then obviously fouled… play on. One rare QPR attack was interrupted to go back and check on whether Jaidon Anthony was injured in back play. He wasn’t, as anybody with half a brain in their head could have told you. Not only not a head injury, but not an injury at all – he laid down deliberately to get the play stopped and Kitchen bought it. Even the Burnley physios reluctant to come on because they knew Anthony would have to go off for treatment he palpably didn’t need – the medics had to be forced onto the field by the referee who must have known at that point that’d royally fucked up. A young official, on his first visit to a Premier League ground, 700 visiting fans tucked away in a corner… all a bit much for him, and a long afternoon at his hands for those of a hooped persuasion.

Burnley: Trafford 6; Roberts 7, Egan-Riley 6, Esteve 6, Humphreys 6 (Pires 73, 6); Cullen 6 (Rodriguez 73, 6) , Brownhill 6; Koleosho 7, Laurent 6 (Hountondji 87, -), Anthony 7 (Agyei 81, -); Flemming 5

Subs not used: Dodgson, Hladky, Massengo, Mejbri

QPR: Nardi 7; Dunne 7, Cook 8, Clarke-Salter 7, Ashby 5; Varane 6, Field 6; Smyth 6 (Morgan 81, -), Chair 6 (Andersen 81, -), Saito 6 (Lloyd 87, -); Celar 4 (Bennie 61, 6)

Subs not used: Santos, Dixon-Bonner, Madsen, Shepperd, Walsh

Yellow Cards: Bennie 81 (foul)

Referee – Andrew Kitchen (Durham) 4 Distinctly home oriented.

Stoke 1 QPR 0, Wednesday February 14, 2024, Championship

Sinclair Armstrong got no change at all from McNally and co, and referee Andrew Kitchen is one of those Championship officials who’s taken completely against him so no free kicks were forthcoming when they might have been on the rare occasions he did do something vaguely okay.

Stoke: Iversen N/A; Hoever 5, McNally 6, Rose 5, Thompson 6; Cundle 5 (Leris 89, -), Baker 5, Burger 6 (Pearson 75, 5); Tchamadeu 5 (Gooch 81, -), Ennis 5 (Wesley 74, 4), Bae 5 (Laurent 81, -)

Subs not used: Campbell, Bonham, Wilmot, Manhoef

Goals: Burger 45 (assisted McNally)

QPR: Begovic 5; Cannon 4, Cook 5, Clarke-Salter 4 (Dykes 85, -), Paal 4; Hayden 5 (Field 85, -), Colback 4 (Willock 78, 4), Hodge 5; Smyth 4 (Andersen 67, 5), Armstrong 4 (Frey 67, 5), Chair 4

Subs not used: Dunne, Archer, Dixon-Bonner, Fox

Yellow Cards: Hayden 64 (foul)

Referee – Andrew Kitchen (Durham) 6 Fine. Harsh on Armstrong a few times, but first world problems. I actually felt sorry for him having to referee this nonsense.

QPR 1 Cardiff City 2, Monday January 1, 2024, Championship

QPR: Begovic 5; Cannon 4, Dunne 3, Clarke-Salter 4 (Fox 81, -), Paal 4; Dixon-Bonner 5 (Adomah 67, 3), Field 4, Dozzell 3; Smyth 6, Dykes 4, Larkeche 4 (Kolli 46, 7 (Armstrong 81, -))

Subs not used: Kakay, Archer, Talla, Drewe, Pedder

Goals: Smyth 51 (assisted Kolli)

Bookings: Fox 85 (foul), Dykes 90+2 (foul)

Cardiff: Alnwick 6; Ng 7, Goutas 7, McGuinness 6, Collins 5 (Panzo 87, -); Wintle 6, Siopis 7 (Adams 87, -), Ralls 6; Meite 5, Etete 5 (Bowler 60, 6), Colwill 7 (Tanner 74, 6)

Subs not used: Ugbo, Evans, Turner, Robinson

Goals: Goutas 16 (assisted Ralls), Ng 74 (assisted Wintle)

Bookings: McGuinness 58 (foul), Collins 63 (foul), Ng 89 (time wasting),Adams 90+1 (foul) Panzo 90+6 (foul)

Referee – Andrew Kitchen (Durham) 6 Not too bad, occasionally a little naïve around the ‘dark arts’ of time wasting and such like. Five minutes was very skinny at the end of this game. Looks and feels like a new referee finding his feet at a higher level, which is exactly what he is.

QPR 1 Swansea 1, Tuesday September 19, 2023, Championship

For the first time this year, QPR were expected to win. And my don’t we know from experience how problematic that can be. Frequently it looks exactly like the first five or six minutes did here, with Swansea fast out of the traps in a high press, and QPR rather caught in the headlights while lackadaisically rolling the ball backwards and forwards between each other waiting for the inevitable goals and glory to present themselves. Without the suspended Jack Colback there was a Hammersmith Flyover of space between QPR’s defence and midfield, into which Jamie Paterson settled into an early revel. They should have scored after four minutes when Paterson shot wide after Josh Key had reached the byline and cut back – a good chance – and then did so on six minutes when Morgan Fox losing a header in the left channel was enough to spark a complete meltdown of the defence and Begovic’s attempt to parry away a low cross was then batter back into the empty net by Josh Ginnelly with his hand.

Not the decision debutant Championship referee Andrew Kitchen needed this early into his second tier bow, and not the night to team him with linesman Bhupinder Gil who could scarcely have done a worse job running the Ellerslie Road side of the ground had he stuffed the flag up his arse and waddled about like a duck for the duration. Both of them, somehow, missed this most basic of calls and allowed the goal to stand. Staggeringly inept.

QPR: Begovic 5; Kakay 5, Cook 5, Fox 4; Smyth 6 (Kolli 87, -), Dozzell 5, Field 6, Paal 6; Willock 4 (Kelman 73, 5), Armstrong 5 (Dykes 61, 6), Chair 6

Subs not used: Clarke-Salter, Dixon-Bonner, Larkeche, Duke-McKenna, Walsh, Adomah

Goals: Dykes 90+2 (assisted Chair)

Yellow Cards: Kakay 67 (foul)

Swansea: Rushworth 5; Cabango 5, Wood 5, Humphreys 5; Key 6, (Tymon 34, 5), Fulton 6, Grimes 6, Lowe 5 (Kukharevych 73, 5), Ginnelly 5 (Cooper 73, 3); Cullen 4 (Yates 58, 4), Paterson 6

Subs not used: Fisher, Pedersen, Darling, Patino, Ashby

Goals: Ginnelly 7 (unassisted)

Red Cards: Cooper 90+8 (two bookings)

Yellow Cards: Wood 5 (foul), Cooper 90+7 (foul), Cooper 90+8 (foul)

Referee – Andrew Kitchen (Durham) 5 I actually feel a little bit sorry for him. The Swansea goal, five minutes into his Championship debut, is a blatant handball. How he hasn’t seen it, I don’t know, but you can only give what you see and if, for whatever reason, he’s unsighted or missed it or whatever, then an experienced linesman on the far side has to help out. You would think his assistants and fourth would have been picked to help get him through this first night unscathed, and unfortunately Bhupinder Gill on the far side was an absolute hindrance to him all night. Between them they botched that relatively simple decision. He actually refereed most of the rest of it quite well, but you can’t be giving a high mark when they’ve allowed a goal that a geezer has batted in with his hand.

Stats

Durham-based official Andrew Kitchen was promoted onto the EFL list for the 2021/22 season. He showed 69 yellows and two reds in 29 games split almost entirely across League One and League Two with the odd cup game thrown in there for good measure. Another pretty lenient season in the lower two divisions in 2022/23 as well – 80 yellows and three reds in 33 games, topped up substantially by a season-high total of ten bookings at Fleetwood 0-0 Cheltenham in League One. He finished the campaign with the Barnsley 1-1 Bolton play-off semi-final.

Moving into the Championship for 2023/24 he finished with 103 yellows (3.12) and three reds in 33 games. The seven yellow cards shown in QPR’s 2-1 home defeat against Cardiff was his biggest haul. Last season he finished with 101 yellows (3.15) and two reds in 32 games topped out with eight yellows at Portsmouth 0-0 Norwich and Sheff Utd 1-0 Watford. Happy memories for Charlton – their one game with this official last season was their 1-0 play-off final victory against Leyton Orient.

His over officious attempt at preventing a game breaking out on opening night at Birmingham 1-1 Ipswich ended with a late penalty awarded against Lyndon Dykes. Five yellows there, and nine in total from three games.

QPR are 0-3-2 from five appointments with this official. Charlton are 2-1-0 from three.

Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

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