Mick
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- Oct 28, 2003
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Our last three home games have produced no less than 24 yellow cards. Who is the man charged with keeping this impressive run going?
Well, tomorrow night's match against Norwich will be refereed by the experienced official, Phil Crossley, from Bromley in Kent.
This would be his eighth season as a League referee but as he missed all of 2007/8 through injury, I guess it's really his seventh. The two previous seasons were both interrupted by longish spells out too, but he seems to have regained his fitness over the last season and a half.
His injuries came at a bad time as he was on the verge of breaking into the upper echelons of refereeing having been given a couple of Premiership matches, the FA Vase Final and the Womens FA Cup Final. He also did the League One play off final when a scandalous decision robbed Hartlepool of a place in the Championship which went to Sheffield Wednesday instead. He was also 4th Official for the Liverpool/Chelsea Carling Cup Final.
Even more prestigiously, he refereed Dougie Freedman's testimonial at Palace last year.
I have always considered him to be a reasonable official; a safe pair of hands. So, it's unlikely we'll see anything comparable to the excesses of Messrs Ward and Deadman. He has, however, upped his card rate this season, probably a reflection on a number of tricky appointments. Fourteen matches have produced 52 yellows and 4 reds (including one in each of his last two games). On Saturday he was 4th official at the exhibition of shambolic defending at Upton Park.
He has been a fairly lucky referee for Southend over the years. This will be his ninth Southend match and we have five wins and two draws from the previous games. This is largely due to the fact that only one, Cambridge A 2002/3 (1-1), was away from home. The solitary defeat was last season, just over a year ago when we lost 2-1 to Oldham.
Probably the most significant of the other matches was the 2-2 draw with Bristol Rovers to give us the aggregate LDV win. Also the 3-2 League Cup win over Brighton, a match which was 1-0 to Brighton with about 4 mins to go.
His most memorable visit to Roots Hall, for all the wrong reasons, would be as an Assistant on the day Mike North sadly passed away.
Assisting will be Eric Mackrell (no fish jokes, please) from Petersfield, Hampshire and Mike McCoy (as he was for the Oldham game last year) from West Sussex with Sam Lewis from Middlesex performing 4th Official duties.
Well, tomorrow night's match against Norwich will be refereed by the experienced official, Phil Crossley, from Bromley in Kent.
This would be his eighth season as a League referee but as he missed all of 2007/8 through injury, I guess it's really his seventh. The two previous seasons were both interrupted by longish spells out too, but he seems to have regained his fitness over the last season and a half.
His injuries came at a bad time as he was on the verge of breaking into the upper echelons of refereeing having been given a couple of Premiership matches, the FA Vase Final and the Womens FA Cup Final. He also did the League One play off final when a scandalous decision robbed Hartlepool of a place in the Championship which went to Sheffield Wednesday instead. He was also 4th Official for the Liverpool/Chelsea Carling Cup Final.
Even more prestigiously, he refereed Dougie Freedman's testimonial at Palace last year.
I have always considered him to be a reasonable official; a safe pair of hands. So, it's unlikely we'll see anything comparable to the excesses of Messrs Ward and Deadman. He has, however, upped his card rate this season, probably a reflection on a number of tricky appointments. Fourteen matches have produced 52 yellows and 4 reds (including one in each of his last two games). On Saturday he was 4th official at the exhibition of shambolic defending at Upton Park.
He has been a fairly lucky referee for Southend over the years. This will be his ninth Southend match and we have five wins and two draws from the previous games. This is largely due to the fact that only one, Cambridge A 2002/3 (1-1), was away from home. The solitary defeat was last season, just over a year ago when we lost 2-1 to Oldham.
Probably the most significant of the other matches was the 2-2 draw with Bristol Rovers to give us the aggregate LDV win. Also the 3-2 League Cup win over Brighton, a match which was 1-0 to Brighton with about 4 mins to go.
His most memorable visit to Roots Hall, for all the wrong reasons, would be as an Assistant on the day Mike North sadly passed away.
Assisting will be Eric Mackrell (no fish jokes, please) from Petersfield, Hampshire and Mike McCoy (as he was for the Oldham game last year) from West Sussex with Sam Lewis from Middlesex performing 4th Official duties.
