Brown will blow first whistle of 2012

02 January 2012 09:45
Mark Brown from East Yorkshire will referee Burnley's first match of 2012 this afternoon when we play Leeds United at Elland Road.

It's Brown's second season as a Football League referee and he's certainly having a quieter season than he did last when he found himself suspended and banned from using social networking sites.

His first season was progressing well and in January last year he got his first Championship game, Ipswich's home win against Doncaster, when he decided it would be good fun to have a joke at Liverpool's expense on Twitter.

He was quickly suspended by referees' chief Mike Riley and was banned from using all social networking sites. He came back but was only given one more Championship game all season and that was our defeat at Bristol City when he stood in as a late replacement for Andy Haines.

Not only was his second Championship game involving the Clarets, so was the third as he started this season at Turf Moor and our 2-2 home draw against Watford. It was the first of five Championship games this season with two of them coming in the last month.

Brown is not the busiest of referees when it comes to the cards and this season he's yellow carded 52 players in 20 games whilst the only player he has sent off was Bury's Mark Hughes in their FA Cup defeat against Crawley Town.

Of those yellow cards, 21 of them have gone to home team players and 31 to away team players, and the card total includes 7 in his last game which was the 2-2 draw between Morecambe and Burton Albion two days ago.

Morecambe's Andrew Fleming, Jason Price, Nick Fenton and Will Hailing were all carded as were John McGrath, Billy Kee and Aaron Webster of Burton and that's the highest number of yellow cards from him in any game.

His two Burnley games have given him a rating of 61.33 out of 100 in RATE THE REF and that sees him in 36th place.

The assistant referees at Leeds are Ryan Johnson (Manchester) and Mark Griffiths (South Yorkshire). The fourth official is Jason Tyas (West Yorkshire).

Previous Burnley Games

Season Opponents V Res Y R Burnley Players Carded               2010/11 Bristol City a 0-2 6 0 n Fox Mears Rodriguez Carlisle 2011/12 Watford h 2-2 2 0 n Amougou

Source: FOOTYMAD