Mick
The Ref Aficionado.
After Monday's unsurprisingly excellent performance from Dean Whitestone, we have another referee who is usually pretty decent too. No lack of experience with Saturday's referee. It is Scott Mathieson from Stockport who I believe is the longest serving Football League referee, this being his 19th season.
His early seasons pre-date readily available records but I don't recall him ever appearing at Roots Hall before. One wonders why they send a referee all the way from Stockport for a game like this, unless he's on the verge of retiring and has asked to visit the few grounds where he hasn't officiated. Alternatively it might be as a punishment for screwing up with a successfully appealed red card a couple of weeks back.
He has officiated many away matches, the most recent being the 2-1 victory over Rotherham at the Don Valley Stadium. Yellow for Corr and one of theirs. Before that, the stupor of the 0-0 at Cheltenham in 2008/9 when he was a late replacement. Prior to that it was 2004/5 when we won at Notts County and 2003/4 for the own goal fest at Orient. Others include defeats at Boston and Brentford (Owusu hat-trick) and wins at Wigan and Torquay. So very much a mixed bag of results with him.
He is a steady referee and a safe pair of hands. He will try to let the game flow. A slightly above average card count for probably the first time in his long career with 84 yellows and 7 reds from 26 games.
Assistants will be Nick Cooper from Ipswich and Chris O'Connell from Leighton Buzzard with John O'Brien from London as 4th Official.
His early seasons pre-date readily available records but I don't recall him ever appearing at Roots Hall before. One wonders why they send a referee all the way from Stockport for a game like this, unless he's on the verge of retiring and has asked to visit the few grounds where he hasn't officiated. Alternatively it might be as a punishment for screwing up with a successfully appealed red card a couple of weeks back.
He has officiated many away matches, the most recent being the 2-1 victory over Rotherham at the Don Valley Stadium. Yellow for Corr and one of theirs. Before that, the stupor of the 0-0 at Cheltenham in 2008/9 when he was a late replacement. Prior to that it was 2004/5 when we won at Notts County and 2003/4 for the own goal fest at Orient. Others include defeats at Boston and Brentford (Owusu hat-trick) and wins at Wigan and Torquay. So very much a mixed bag of results with him.
He is a steady referee and a safe pair of hands. He will try to let the game flow. A slightly above average card count for probably the first time in his long career with 84 yellows and 7 reds from 26 games.
Assistants will be Nick Cooper from Ipswich and Chris O'Connell from Leighton Buzzard with John O'Brien from London as 4th Official.
