Mason in charge of Villa v QPR in bad week for referees in general
Tuesday, 23rd Sep 2008 21:48

In a week where all we seem to be talking about is poor refereeing decisions it's Premiership official Lee Mason for QPR at Aston Villa on Wednesday night.

Aston Villa v Queens Park Rangers
Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire)
Assistants – Collin (Merseyside) and Kirkup (Northamptonshire)
Fourth Official – Bratt (West Midlands)

Goodness me it’s difficult to know where to begin this week. Actually it’s not really is it, there’s only one decision from the weekend that has got everybody talking so we’ll start with that, but I do feel the official’s response to a farce of their own making highlights a wider issue regarding this “respect” campaign we’re having forced down our throats this season.

There’s little point in describing Reading’s opening “goal” at Watford at the weekend because words won’t do it justice and chances are you’ve seen it already. If you haven’t, well I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that the ball went four yards wide of the post but was nevertheless awarded as a goal by assistant referee Nigel Bannister. He said afterwards that it was an optical illusion – he’d have been in my office first thing on Monday morning for the tin tack. I know everybody makes mistakes, I know they’re only human, I know everybody makes errors every day of the week but come on let’s not try and defend the indefensible here – somebody with eyesight so poor he thinks a ball has gone into the net when it has in fact gone four, possibly five, yards wide should not be involved as an official at a football match. Nor should he be driving his car really but that’s a point for the DVLA to consider.

The referee, Stuart Attwell, hardly covered himself in glory either. As ever LFW told you the key issues before you even knew they were issues last week when I lamented the increased role of linesmen and the detrimental effect it was having on decision making. Attwell could see the whole incident and didn’t have to take the advice of the certifiable loon on the line whatever possessed this normally very good, bright young referee to take his assistant at face value and give the goal God only knows. I notice Attwell has been taken off tomorrow’s match between Ipswich and Wigan due to “holiday allowance.” I sincerely hop his holiday consists of some very experienced officials going through the video with him time after time talking about where he should be positioned at corners and how he could have dealt with the situation better.

Attwell’s reaction to the decision worries me. With players from both sides actually laughing at it and both lining up for a goal kick with few complaints some alarm bells should have been ringing in his mind. The player reaction should clearly have told him something was badly wrong but rather than take a step back, take a deep breath, admit a mistake has been made and set about correcting it he ran around booking people that dared to complain and sent Ady Boothryod to the stand. I’m sorry but there’s no other word for that than arrogance, arrogance of the absolute highest order. Like I say he’s a referee that I rate normally but he needs top have a long hard look at the way he dealt with the whole sorry situation.

Needless cards and arrogance leads me nicely on to my old card happy friend Mike Riley who brutally murdered the Chelsea v Man Utd game on Sunday with eight cards and a total and utter ban on any physical contact whatsoever. He’s always been the same Riley and yet the authorities love him and regularly let him loose on their headline fixtures. I’d like to let the useless tosser loose out in the wilds like a mangy dog if I could.

A couple of the cards were, like Attwell’s at Watford, for dissent and the ‘Respect’ campaign was brought up again. Now I’m sorry but how on earth can you respect somebody who gives a goal when the ball is four yards wide of the post and a pencil necked, sneck nosed, officious bastard from Leeds booking players in scatter gun fashion for reasons I’m not sure even he fully understood? How can you respect that? Respect is something that has to be earned, you can’t just stand in the middle and stamp your feet and say you’ve all got to respect me or I’ll scream and scream until I’m sick. That’s not how it works. If referees want respect then there has to be some come back for crass incompetence we saw at Reading, and a severe beating for every referee that is as egotistical and card happy as Mike Riley was at Chelsea.

And breathe. After all that I haven’t even made it as far as our referee for the trip to Aston Villa – Lee Mason. Mason is not my favourite referee it must be said and he started this season in nightmare fashion with a series of perplexing penalty decisions and a red card in the Charlton v Reading Championship match. Two yellows and a red in that game contributing to 12 yellows (four a match) and a red in four games so far this season. Last season he showed 114 yellows (3.68 a match) and four reds in 31 matches which included two yellows in the 1-1 draw between Leicester and QPR at the start of the campaign – it also included an incredible 22 yellows in just four games involving Leeds United. A rating of seven in that match was good enough for joint fifth on the referee league.

Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire) 7 Well refereed with only a couple of cards. The penalty looked pretty blatant to me at the time and I'd certainly have been furious if we'd been denied a spot kick in similar circumstances. LFW Leicester Match Report

In 2006/07 he was slightly less card happy with 87 yellows in 33 games (2.63 a match) and three reds throughout the season. He booked nobody in the QPR v Ipswich game at the start of the campaign, although he did give a very poor penalty decision in favour of the visitors, and was also in charge for our 3-3 draw at West Brom. He was in charge of our 3-3 draw with Rushden in 2003/04 as well so he seems to enjoy that scoreline. An average rating of 5.5 out of ten, good enough for 14th position on the referee league.

Ref: L Mason (Lancashire)- 6 Was a not popular man in W12 after awarding the penalty to our visitors, this was a big turning point but we were quite frankly hopeless after this so can't really argue. He did manage to keep his cards in his pocket though but the penalty decision was the major talking point. LFW Ipswich Match Report

Referee: Lee Mason 5 (Lancashire) Did a half decent job overall but there were four terrible decisions in the second half that really stuck out. Lomas and Gallen were both penalised for winning the ball, Lee Cook was denied a run on goal by his lack of advantage rule knowledge and then to make up for that he gave QPR a free kick on the edge of the area for nothing. Also booked Jimmy Smith very harshly. Ably assisted by the young linesman from the Colchester game - there's always lots of very bizarre flag waving when he's around and last night was no exception, much to the home fans' disgust! LFW West Brom Match Report

His last Villa game was a 4-1 home win against Newcastle at the end of last season so let’s hope for no repeat of that scoreline on Wednesday. Mason has only been on the list since 2002 and is already a regular in the Premiership so somebody clearly likes him. Looking further ahead we have Anthony Taylor in charge for the visit or Derby, assisted by eccentric linesman Brendan Malone. More on them later in the week.