Our old mate Andy D'Urso is back at Loftus Road for the opening day of the season on Saturday as the R's face Blackpool.

QPR v Blackpool
Referee – Andy D’Urso (Essex
Assistants – Betts (Norfolk) and Buck (Kent)
Fourth Official – Bushell (London)

As far as referees are concerned we are straight back in at the deep end this weekend with our old mate Andy D’Urso in charge of the first league game, and then Steve Bratt back for another crack at us down in the South West on Tuesday. QPR fans immediately groan whenever D’Urso is announced as match official, and he has indeed had some bloody nightmares at our expense, however in recent times we have had our fair share of decisions from him. He’s a bit mad and incompetent, but certainly not biased.

Last season D’Urso booked 77 (1.975 a game, a low average) and sent off seven in 39 matches. His busiest days were two six yellow card hauls at Swanea v Watford and Aldershot v Morecambe. Sadly his worst moment came at the expense of Iain Hume who suffered a fractured skull and brain bleeding on the end of Chris Morgan’s elbow – an offence that deserved a prison sentence but only received a yellow card from D’Urso. He had one game of ours, a 1-0 away defeat at Birmingham. He disallowed a Brum goal for an obvious handball by Liam Ridgwell, although may well have awarded it but for intervention from the linesman, and was awarded a rating of five for his performance, good enough for joint 25th on the referee league.

Referee: Andy D'Urso (Essex) 5 Only two bookings which is a good thing, but on three or four occasions he brought both sides back for free kicks when they had the ball and would have preferred an advantage. His time keeping remains suspect for me, not sure that game warranted five minutes of additional time, and there were inconsistencies in his performance – penalising Blackstock for climbing at the back post in the second half in an identical way to Agustien had done without punishment in the first half the prime example. LFW Birmingham Match Report

In 2007/08 D’Urso booked 100 (2.325 a game) and sent five off in 43 games, his busiest day was a six yellow card haul in the Chester v Wrexham derby match in League One. He was in charge of two very contrasting QPR matches. Under John Gregory a dire Rangers’ side was beaten 5-1 at West Brom, although a rating of eight out of ten shows the referee had little to do with it. Then later in the season with Luigi De Canio in charge the R’s walloped Stoke City at home 3-0, however D’Urso got a number of key decisions wrong in our favour and was marked with a four. An average of sixth placed him halfway up that season’s league.

Referee: Andy D'Urso (Essex) 8 Nothing to referee really with only one team competing but did well overall. Let Moore off without a booking for a bad tackle that should have received a card but I'd rather see cards stay in the referee's pocket where possible and those that were awarded today were deserved. Well done - an easy afternoon though truth be told. LFW West Brom Match Report

Referee: Andy D'Urso (Essex) 4 Fantastic from a QPR point of view but two big decisions went against Stoke incorrectly here. Griffin should never have been sent off and Agyemang was well offside for the third goal. Add to that the letting off of Rowlands and Vine without bookings for tackles that really warranted them in the first half and it would be fair to say we’ve had the rub of the green from the official this week. LFW Stoke Match Report

In 2006/07 D’Urso again took QPR twice, for away wins at Southampton and Luton. The Kenilworth Road game was the infamous ‘Amy Raynor’ match where D’Urso’s female assistant was lambasted at the final whistle by Luton manager Mike Newell who questioned the whole idea of daring to involve women in football owing to a decision from Raynor to award Rangers a corner in the lead up to one of their three goals. No mention of the abysmal Luton defending for the other two goals of course, nor the fact that replays suggested it probably was a bloody corner. ITV had a lot to answer for over that whole episode, bumping QPR up to a main match status on The Championship on Sunday morning having originally scheduled it for goals only – that required a dubbed on commentary which then focussed entirely on Raynor. Anyway D’Urso averaged 6.5 and finished joint seventh on the league.

Referee - Andy D'Urso 8 One of his all time best ever games I think! Just two bookings, both deserved and apart from that play was allowed to flow, free kicks were evenly distributed, competence and common sense was shown. Unbelievable really. Should have booked Rasiak for his outrageous piece of play acting near the end and failed to clamp down on some pretty blatant time wasting from QPR but other than that disturbingly good. LFW Southampton Match Report

Ref: A D'Urso (Essex) 5 - Kept his cards in his pocket which makes a welcome change, and tried to allow the game to flow however at least one of the two first half incidents should have resulted in a Luton penalty and where all that stoppage time came from at the end of the first half only he knows. ,a href= http://www.clubfanzine.com/QPR/v2.showNews.php?id=8051>LFW Luton Match Report

D’Urso did three games in 2005/06, averaging 4.66 and finishing 23rd on the referee league. Rangers were beaten 3-1 at home by Crystal Palace, drew 1-1 at Sheffield Wednesday, and lost 2-1 at home to Watford when the Essex official had one of his more eccentric days.

Ref: A D'Urso (Essex) – 6 The usual number of card from Mr D'Urso, unfortunately apart from Furlong we can't really moan about ours. And to be fair to him he could quite easily have sent Bircham off as well. His performance faded into the background when compared with our own players. LFW Palace Match Report

Referee: A D'Urso – 7 It's difficult to judge this because he seemed to be giving everything to QPR and I'm biased! At the end of the day I can see why the Wednesday fans were moaning but they were masters of their own downfall a lot of the time, stupid fouls, daft tackles, all round incompetence and idiocy on show from some of their players. Lots of them seemed to think they were still in League One and if they continue to show naivety on Saturday's scale they'll soon be back there. QPR's goal was a prime example, Lomas was going nowhere half time was fast approaching, just stand up and keep him there - but no Glenn Whelen has to go sliding in. I mean how thick is he? What's D'Urso meant to do, make allowances for lack of a brain and play on? LFW Sheff Wed Match Report

Ref: A D'Urso (Essex) 1 And that's being complimentary. D'Urso came into the game with a bad reputation and managed to leave W12 with an even worse one!! Quite unbelievable really. He couldn't control players, he unnecessarily blew up when he could have easily let the game flow and he was assisted by two god-awful linesmen. Henderson should have seen red but instead only received a yellow. No doubt his report will be highly critical of the crowd so we can expect some penalties coming our way too. LFW Watford Match Report

In all he has refereed QPR 17 times, with the R’s winning six, losing six and drawing five. He has booked 25 QPR players, 21 opponents and shown red cards to two of each.

Elsewhere this weekend Premiership referee Mike Dean has been given the Saturday evening match between West Brom and Newcastle. Andy Hall is back for another campaign and starts with Yeovil v Tranmere in League One, Trevor Kettle has Lincoln v Barnet, Richard Beeby has retired from the list.

Looking further ahead we have Steve Bratt for the League Cup game at Exeter on Tuesday. Bratt’s only previous QPR game was in the same part of the world, at Plymouth the season before last, and LoftforWords awarded him a mark of one out of ten for a shambolic display. More on him, much more, on Monday.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters

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