Mick
Life President
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2003
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Tonight's referee is the shaven-headed 41 year old, Darren Drysdale from Lincolnshire. A sergeant in the RAF, on the human resources side, he began refereeing in 1988, officiating in the Northern Alliance and Northern Premier League, became an assistant referee for the Football League in 1996, and in1997 progressed to being a Conference North referee. In 1998 he was appointed as an assistant referee for the Premier League, and two years later was given the honour of being an assistant referee to Graham Poll in the 2000 FA Cup Final, he also became a FIFA assistant referee in the same year. In 2002, he became a UEFA assistant referee, one of only three from the UK at the time. He was appointed to the Football League List of referees in 2004.
He attracted some media attention in 2007 after Bradford City's Dean Windass received a five-match ban for swearing at him in the car park after a home game against Brentford.
He was dropped from the list a couple of years later and is now in his second spell as a League referee. Apparently he drives a top of the range Bentley with personalised number plates.
We have seen little of him over his 9 years; just five matches.
Most recently the Cup replay at Brentford, when he (and Smith) did rather well. One caution for Prosser.
Before that was the 3-2 away win last season at Bristol Rovers when any criticism would have centred on a slightly soft penalty. He sent off one of theirs and booked Tomlin and Phillips. Before that he brought the curtain down on the season before with the home play-off match against Crewe which, of course, we drew 2-2. Four cautions - one for us (the badly-missed Grant) and 3 for them including a controversial one for simulation.
Previously, it was a 3-2 home defeat by Coventry in 2006/7 (2 yellows apiece) and the 2-1 win at Port Vale the following season when Macca got the winner (we shaded the yellows 3-2).
Card count is around or slightly above average this season with 4 reds and 36 yellows from 11 games.
Assistants are Paul Harris from Maidstone, Kent (hope he does better than the last Kentish lino) and Jake Hillier from Barnet with the short, bald John Magill from Colchester holding up the numbers board as high as he can.
He attracted some media attention in 2007 after Bradford City's Dean Windass received a five-match ban for swearing at him in the car park after a home game against Brentford.
He was dropped from the list a couple of years later and is now in his second spell as a League referee. Apparently he drives a top of the range Bentley with personalised number plates.
We have seen little of him over his 9 years; just five matches.
Most recently the Cup replay at Brentford, when he (and Smith) did rather well. One caution for Prosser.
Before that was the 3-2 away win last season at Bristol Rovers when any criticism would have centred on a slightly soft penalty. He sent off one of theirs and booked Tomlin and Phillips. Before that he brought the curtain down on the season before with the home play-off match against Crewe which, of course, we drew 2-2. Four cautions - one for us (the badly-missed Grant) and 3 for them including a controversial one for simulation.
Previously, it was a 3-2 home defeat by Coventry in 2006/7 (2 yellows apiece) and the 2-1 win at Port Vale the following season when Macca got the winner (we shaded the yellows 3-2).
Card count is around or slightly above average this season with 4 reds and 36 yellows from 11 games.
Assistants are Paul Harris from Maidstone, Kent (hope he does better than the last Kentish lino) and Jake Hillier from Barnet with the short, bald John Magill from Colchester holding up the numbers board as high as he can.