No surprise in Leeds referee appointment
Wednesday, 4th May 2011 22:08 by Clive Whittingham

QPR could well be partying on the Loftus Road pitch at the end of Saturday’s home game with Leeds. So who else to referee but Mark Clattenburg?

Referee >>> Mark Clattenburg (County Durham) sacked in 2007 over debts accrued by his business and threatening e-mails sent to associates but successfully appealed and was reinstated, after serving an eight month ban. Refereed our promotion game at Hillsborough in 2004, and home play off semi final against Oldham in 2003.

Assistants >>> Stephen Child (Kent), ran the line for Clattenburg in the Nottingham Forest home match earlier this season, and Patrick Keane (West Midlands)

Fourth Official >>> Rob Lewis (Shropshire)

Previously

QPR 1 Forest 1, Saturday February 13, 2011

Forest spent much of the pre-match lamenting the loss of their midfield enforcer Guy Moussi to a thigh injury which is likely to rule him out for the rest of the season. He was replaced by former Preston man Paul McKenna, a man with a history of good performances against QPR to his name and, following in the footsteps of Graham Alexander, Liam Lawrence, Jem Karacan, Matthew Milles, the latest player to come to Loftus Road with the intention of both playing and refereeing the match. Fortunately Premiership referee Mark Clattenburg, who has twice refereed crucial QPR promotion games with positive outcomes against Oldham and Sheff Wed, was on hand to ignore McKenna’s constant (and I mean constant) volleys of abuse and advice and keep a firm grip on the game.

Rangers would no doubt have been glad to see the names of Robert Earnshaw and Dele Adebola missing from the Forest line up – Earnshaw scored a hat trick on this ground in his Cardiff days while Adebola has goals against Rangers for four different clubs and presents the type of physical challenge that our centre halves have struggled with this season. As it was they had more than they could handle in the former of McGoldrick and Tudgay. That became apparent within the opening ten seconds as Forest kicked off, quickly lobbed the ball up to the edge of the box and won it, and then struck the inside of Paddy Kenny’s post with a low shot on the turn by Tudgay. The flag had been raised and the goal would not have counted had it gone in, although in all the confusion it appeared to be Matt Connolly rather than a Forest player who poked the ball into his path. This gave McKenna his first opportunity to scream in the referee’s face.

QPR have kept a league leading 17 clean sheets this season and have never lost from a winning position. They’re not the sort of team you want to fall behind against, particularly at Loftus Road, and Forest’s situation worsened within seven minutes. Different teams have taken different approaches with Adel Taarabt this season and it was pretty clear from the first minute here that Forest believed the best way to combat the threat of the Moroccan was to kick him. Repeatedly. At the exact halfway point of the half though Radowslaw Majewski took the niggly tactic that had been well metered out by McKenna and the giant Wes Morgan to this point and went too far with it. Possibly seeking to make an impact so that QPR would remember him in future (the big screen had bizarrely listed him as Gary Majewski on the pre-match team sheet) the Pole left the ground and almost snapped Taarabt in half with a crude two footed, studs up hack that had Clattenburg producing a red card before the QPR man had even hit the ground. McKenna complained about it, but few others did – a nasty and wholly unnecessary lunge that brought the correct punishment.

That was the good of Taarabt, the bad came moments later as is so often the case. The QPR captain had been showing signs of descending into a sulk at the end of the first half, as he had done at Hull a few weeks ago, with frustration at the constant failure to find his feet with the ball by his team mates playing out from the back and the physical attention he was receiving from the Forest defenders etched across his face. After another clash with Morgan on halfway Taarabt foolishly aimed a kick at the impressive Forest centre half which would have resulted in a red card had it connected. Clattenburg settled for yellow and Taarabt can count himself very fortunate.

I had suggested in the pub before the match that I had a horrible feeling we may miss our first penalty of the season in this game. Lee Camp saved a spot kick on his first return to Derby in a Forest shirt and having converted all eight of our penalties this season successfully it feels like we’re due a miss. I thought we may get to find out 18 minutes from time when Wayne Routledgeaccelerated into space in the left channel and headed straight for the penalty area. A foul inside the area looked inevitable as Routledge outpaced Gunter and reached the ball before him, but the Welsh fullback had telegraphed his opponent’s intention and did well to make sure he made no contact whatsoever. Routledge hit the deck anyway and Mark Clattenburg, five yards away, should have booked him for diving as well as waving away the appeals.

Clattenburg added three minutes on to the end of a game that was rather petering out. Wayne Routledge crossed for Vaagan Moen to plant a header wide but a draw was a more than fair result on the overall balance of play and although Forest celebrated it like one of their European Cup successes while QPR looked quite downbeat at the final whistle it’s not a bad result for either team.

QPR: Kenny 6, Orr 6, Connolly 5, Gorkss 5 (Chimbonda 73, 6), Hill 7, Faurlin 8 (Moen 79, 6), Derry 7, Smith 8 (Miller 46, 7), Taarabt 6,Routledge 6, Hulse 5

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Hall, Helguson, Shittu

Booked: Taarabt (unsporting conduct), Gorkss (foul), Derry (foul)

Goals: Smith 16 (assisted Faurlin)

Nottm Forest: Camp 6, Gunter 7, Chambers 8, Morgan 8, Konchesky 7, Cohen 6,Majewski 5, McGugan 6 (Anderson 68, 6), McKenna 7, McGoldrick 7 (Tyson 74, 7), Tudgay 7 (Lynch 46, 5)

Subs Not Used: Smith, Adebola, Earnshaw, Moloney

Sent Off: Majewski 23 (serious foul play)

Booked: Tyson (foul)

Goals: McGoldrick 26 (assisted McGugan)

Referee: Mark Clattenburg (Tyne & Wear) 7 I could nit pick – Routledge should have been booked for diving, Morgan got away with plenty without being booked, Derry’s yellow card was a little harsh, McKenna shouldn’t have been allowed to scream in his face all afternoon – but overall he controlled the game very well and got the big decisions spot on. Ran the game with the calm authority and assuredness that the better Premiership referees have.

Burnley 2 QPR 0, Saturday August 5, 2006

The best chance of the half fell to QPR though, and to Ward who met Rowlands' outswinging corner firmly from eight yards but sent the ball straight into the arms of Jensen. Either side of the keeper and it was in, despite the men on the line. Ward took his frustration out on the ball two minutes later with a stinging twenty five yard effort that screamed towards the bottom corner until Jensen diverted it wide.

The Australian midfielder was QPR's main driving force and he drew two Burnley bookings in the final fifteen minutes of the half. Jon Harley and Michael Duff were both carded for upending Ward around the edge of the penalty area.

After half time the home side stepped things up a gear. The home fans in the side stand started to back their players with increasing volume and gusto and right from the kick off they looked more up for it and fitter than QPR. O'Connor flew into Ainsworth right from the restart and was booked and then after another decision against his team manager Steve Cotterill launched a ball into the away end in frustration. He was ticked off by the referee but these two incidents raised the tempo in Burnley's play.

Burnley: Jensen 7, Thomas 7, Harley 7, Sinclair 6, Duff 7, J O'Connor 7 (Elliott 62, 6), Mahon 7 (G O'Connor 90, -), Jones 8, Gray 7, McCann 6, Lafferty 6 (Hyde 62).

Subs: McGreal, Foster.

Goals: Jones 58, 69

Bookings: Duff 33, Harley 45, O'Connor 46

QPR: P Jones 6, Bignot 5, Stewart 6, Rose 5, Milanese 5, Ainsworth 6, Rowlands 7 (Donnelly 78, 6), Lomas 7 (R Jones 65, 5), Ward 7, Cook 6, Czerkas 7 (Bircham 71, 6).

Subs: Cole, Kanyuka.

Referee: M Clattenburg 8 - Excellent start to the season refereeing wise. Played a good advantage, only used the cards when necessary although I remember thinking one of Burnley's was a bit harsh, and allowed some physical contact which was a blessed relief after the World Cup. Good job all in all.

Prior to that Clattenburg was the referee who awarded a late QPR goal from Georges Santos in a 2-1 win at Coventry in January 2005 when the home side believed the ball had not crossed the line. He was also the man in the middle the season before for one of the finest moments in QPR’s history – a 3-1 win at Hillsborough in front of 8,000 travelling fans to seal promotion into the Championship. A year earlier he was in the middle for our 3-0 win at Huddersfield on a Tuesday night with Paul Furlong scoring twice – he rather harshly booked Richard Langley in stoppage time for over celebrating a goal he didn’t even score, one of seven cards handed out on the night. Later that season he refereed another memorable QPR game as the R’s beat Oldham 1-0 in W12 in the play off semi final – the Latics’ Wayne Andrews was sent off late in the game. His first ever QPR appointment was in January 2001 – a 1-0 defeat at Norwich on our way to relegation from this division.

Stats

Clattenburg has shown 117 yellows (3.07 a game) and eight reds in 38 matches this season – split between the Premiership, Europa League, Champions League, Championship and both cup competitions. He has shown six yellows and a red in a single match on four occasions, including Arsenal v Huddersfield in the cup and the two matches immediately after his last QPR appointment in february. His biggest haul in a single game was seven yellows and one red at Bolton v Blackburn in December. Last season he showed 105 yellows (2.5 a game) and five reds in 42 games. It’s games between Spurs and Man Utd that he seems to have the biggest problem with – he was the referee for the infamous Pedro Mendes goal that never was at Old Trafford when Roy Carroll dropped the ball three feet over the line and got away with it, then in February 2008 he refereed the fixture between the two at White Hart Lane and showed ten yellow cards, then this season he allowed Nani to roll the ball in and counted the goal after failing to award Tottenham a free kick when the Portuguese picked the ball up with his hands in the build up.

Other Listings

Championship >>> Clattenburg isn’t the only big name dropping down a level this weekend – Martin Atkinson takes Scunthorpe v Portsmouth.

League One >>> Our old chum Gavin Ward has Bournemouth v Rochdale, Tony Bates has Huddersfield v Brentford and Andy D’Urso takes Sheff Wed v Exeter.

League Two >>> Trevor Kettle finishes another season of terror at Chesterfield v Gillingham.

Photo: Action Images

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