Mick
The Ref Aficionado.
Returning to Roots Hall for the second time in under 5 weeks, tomorrow's referee is Darren Deadman, a civil servant from Cheshunt.
His last and recent performance against Torquay was not his worst appearance here by a large margin; he showed 9 yellow cards in a staggering display of incompetence the season before last at home to Franchise FC. As it happens, we probably benefitted from this abject performance.
In his seventh season as a League referee he has notched up well over 600 yellow cards. His red card count is above average too. This season he already has a massive 87 yellows and 6 reds from 20 games; substantially above average.
He was, for some reason I never really understood, a member of the so-called Talent Group of promising young officials being groomed for better things. He remains highly rated getting mainly Championship matches and loads of TV games.
Based on previous experience of watching Mr Deadman, expect unnecessary cautions and a few puzzling decisions all delivered with an iritating style.
He was once suspended for two weeks for allowing one too many substitutions in a pre-season friendly - hardly his biggest crime against football.
Refereed us 7 times before. It would have been 8 but the weather spared us last Boxing Day. Before the above-mentioned matches it was the previous season away to Brighton, where those of you with binoculars would have seen him caution Dervite and Sankofa. The season before that at home to Northampton (1-1 just 2 yellows), Preston at home the year before that (0-0 6 yellows) and the year before that at home to Swansea (1-2 7 yellows). He also did our 4-3 away win at Chesterfield that year when he sent off their defender for being unwittingly struck by the ball some way from goal.
His assistants will be Asley Slaughter from Brighton and Nigel Lugg from Chipstead in Surrey. The 4th official will be Ryan Atkin from London. The refereeing assessor for this match is the little known Gary Parish.
His last and recent performance against Torquay was not his worst appearance here by a large margin; he showed 9 yellow cards in a staggering display of incompetence the season before last at home to Franchise FC. As it happens, we probably benefitted from this abject performance.
In his seventh season as a League referee he has notched up well over 600 yellow cards. His red card count is above average too. This season he already has a massive 87 yellows and 6 reds from 20 games; substantially above average.
He was, for some reason I never really understood, a member of the so-called Talent Group of promising young officials being groomed for better things. He remains highly rated getting mainly Championship matches and loads of TV games.
Based on previous experience of watching Mr Deadman, expect unnecessary cautions and a few puzzling decisions all delivered with an iritating style.
He was once suspended for two weeks for allowing one too many substitutions in a pre-season friendly - hardly his biggest crime against football.
Refereed us 7 times before. It would have been 8 but the weather spared us last Boxing Day. Before the above-mentioned matches it was the previous season away to Brighton, where those of you with binoculars would have seen him caution Dervite and Sankofa. The season before that at home to Northampton (1-1 just 2 yellows), Preston at home the year before that (0-0 6 yellows) and the year before that at home to Swansea (1-2 7 yellows). He also did our 4-3 away win at Chesterfield that year when he sent off their defender for being unwittingly struck by the ball some way from goal.
His assistants will be Asley Slaughter from Brighton and Nigel Lugg from Chipstead in Surrey. The 4th official will be Ryan Atkin from London. The refereeing assessor for this match is the little known Gary Parish.