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Rookie ref East in charge of Cardiff fixture
Rookie ref East in charge of Cardiff fixture
Tuesday, 24th Feb 2009 15:14

QPR face a second brush with an inexperienced referee in as many games on Wednesday night as Roger East takes charge of the game in hand at Cardiff City.

Cardiff City v QPR
Referee: Roger East (Wiltshire)

Assistants – Grove (West Midlands) and Philpott (Cornwall)
Fourth Official – Swabey (Devon)


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


Mercifully there was little to report from Saturday’s match with Mr Attwell although I still find it amazing that a referee with his positional sense can have risen so far. Even ignoring his lack experience the amount of times he gets his view blocked by players or distance between himself and the incident is extraordinary and results in countless decisions being given based on complete guess work. Still, impossible to blame the referee for our defeat - that’s entirely down to our players.

The big talking point of the weekend was the non-award of a penalty to Blackburn at Old Trafford although as the precedent for awarding penalties to a visiting team in that part of the world has long since been set I see little point in talking about it. The theatrical nature of Pederson’s fall seems to be the main reason behind Howard Webb’s decision but as the United player had hands over both Pederson’s shoulders and was clearly pulling him back that should not matter. It was a blatant penalty but, like I say, you’re not allowed those at Old Trafford.

Our referee at Cardiff on Wednesday night is a relatively new man on the circuit Roger East. This is his first ever QPR game in only his second season in the Football league. He has done six Championship matches so far including Cardiff’s 2-1 home win against Coventry earlier this season - a game the Bluebirds won courtesy of an 85th minute penalty awarded by East and converted by Jay Bothroyd. Coventry also had a goal controversially disallowed for a hand ball in the build up after initially being given by the referee and manager Chris Coleman was so angry afterwards that he refused to speak to the media for fear of landing himself in trouble with the authorities.

Coventry assistant manager Steve King said afterwards: "You could say he's a little upset and we felt that in the circumstances it was best he said nothing. We spoke to the referee after the game and he admitted he saw the linesman flag earlier in the move, but thought it was for offside and overruled it. The linesman then put his flag down. That's what disappointed us. He should have kept it raised."

Here’s hoping for no repeat of that on Wednesday.

Overall this season east has shown 54 yellows (2.45 a game) and five reds in 22 matches. His biggest haul in a single game was eight yellows in a match between Brighton and MK Dons in December and he sent two players off and booked a further three in a game between Brighton and Barnet in the League Cup back in August. In his last match on Saturday he kept the cards in his pocket as Walsall won 2-0 at Northampton in League One. Last season he showed 65 yellows (2.241 a game) and five reds in 29 matches - in amongst that he had another prolific day at Brighton with two reds and two yellows in a game against Huddersfield. Must be the sea air.

Although relatively inexperienced as a Football League referee East served more than his fair share of time on the line - spending seven seasons with the flag. In that time he was an assistant referee in the 2004 FA Cup Final, the 2006 Community Shield and the 2003 Division Two play-off final which was of course between Cardiff and QPR.

There is not a full programme during this week but there are still two ‘old favourites’ in action - Trevor Kettle has Brighton v Northampton, Andy Hall has Swindon v Hartlepool and Kevin Friend has Darlington v Rochdale. Best of luck to the players and supporters involved. Looking further ahead we have Rob Shoebridge from Derbyshire for our trip to Barnsley at the weekend - he sent Matt Connolly off at Norwich earlier in the season but we did at least go on to win the game. More on him on Thursday.

Referee League

Photo: Action Images



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