Bates in charge tomorrow against Cardiff

19 August 2011 15:55
Tony Bates from Stoke will referee tomorrow's second home league game of the season against Cardiff City. It's his first Burnley game since Watford away last season and his first visit to Turf Moor since our 4-0 home win against Hull, also in 2010/11. Bates is one of the most experienced of the current Football League referees. He will reach the age of 50 in October and has now been officiating at Football League level since 1993. The first three seasons were as a linesman (then the name for the man on the touchline with the flag) and since 1996 he's been in the middle. He's refereed Burnley on numerous occasions  and had a poor game when we were beaten 2-0 at Elland Road by Leeds in the 2005/06 season. That's the only occasion I can recall him having a difficult game. A couple of his visits to Burnley have been notable occasions. He was referee in the home game against York in 1998 when Stan Ternent sacked four players at the end of the game and he was the referee tasked with making the decision of when to start the home game against Ipswich in 2008 when there was a parachutist on the cricket field stand roof. Although he reached 100 yellow cards last season, they came in no less than 40 games meaning an average of just 2.5 cards per game. To add to that there were just four red cards with three of them coming in a four game run in September and October. This season he's refereed three games to date. Two of them have been in the Championship and the other, his most recent game, in League One. In those games there have been eight yellow cards with two going to home team players and six to away team players. That last game was Preston's 2-0 midweek win at Chesterfield when both teams had one yellow card each, Chesterfield's Dwayne Mattis and Brian McLean of Preston. The assistant referees tomorrow are Mark Duncan (Cheshire) and Paul Hodskinson (Lancashire) and the fourth official is Paul Graham (Manchester). Previous Burnley Games Season Opponents V Res Y R Burnley Players Carded               1997/98 Bristol City a 1-3 3 0 n Barnes, Beresford, Vinnicombe 1998/99 York City h 0-1 3 0 n Scott, N Moore 2001/02 Bradford City h 1-1 3 0 n Gascoigne, Thomas 2002/03 Brighton & Hove Albion h 1-3 3 1 n Gnohere 2002/03 Nottingham Forest a 0-2 2 0 n I Moore, McGregor 2003/04 Millwall h 1-1 2 0 n West 2003/04 Coventry City a 0-4 2 0 n Jensen, May 2004/05 Plymouth Argyle h 2-0 4 0 n Akinbiyi, Branch, Sinclair 2005/06 Leeds United a 0-2 5 0 n Jensen, McGreal, Sinclair 2006/07 Southampton a 0-0 3 0 n Elliott Harley 2007/08 Scunthorpe United a 0-2 2 0 n Jordan, McCann 2007/08 Coventry City h 2-0 1 0 n McCann 2008/09 Ipswich Town h 0-3 1 0   2008/09 Queens Park Rangers a 0-0 0 0   2009/10 MK Franchise a 2-1 2 0   2010/11 Hull City h 4-0 1 0   2010/11 Watford a 3-1 3 0 n Mears Fox

Source: FOOTYMAD