City Ground referee is Carl Boyeson

22 November 2013 18:07
Carl Boyeson from Hull will referee our game against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground tomorrow, a referee who has had some nightmares in recent years at Burnley games.

Boyeson first refereed us back in the Stan Ternent days in the 2003/04 season in a 3-2 home defeat against Watford. On that occasion I wrote of him: "This must surely have been his worst ever game. He cannot possibly ever get worse than this."

He didn't make any result defining decisions that day, we did that all by ourselves, but he had a shocker. Worryingly, it wasn't his worst ever and more recent home games have been testament to that.

It was Boyeson who didn't even notice the time wasting and spoiling tactics of Steve Cotterill's Portsmouth in April 2012 and it was Boyeson who seemed to miss all Brighton's appalling antics a year later.

Last season, after a quieter game at Middlesbrough, he turned in another shocker in our 1-1 home draw against Barnsley when he failed to award a penalty for a foul on Charlie Austin and then, incredibly, allowed the already carded Stephen Foster to pull back Martin Paterson when he was clear on goal.

As poor as we were that night I remain convinced we would have won the game with a referee who had got things correct.

His problem, much of the time, is that he misses what goes on because he's nowhere near the action.

That's probably why he has the second lowest rating for fitness and positioning in RATE THE REF with a rating of 9.40 out of 25. Frighteningly, in his five qualifying games, that is the highest of his four ratings which give him a total of 33.52 out of 100, lower than every referee other than Darren Drysdale.

The one positive is that he doesn't usually card too often but his average this season has increased with 48 yellow cards in just 13 games, of which only three have been in the Championship. Of those cards, 19 have gone to home team players with 29 to away team players.

The only player he's sent off this season is Rochdale's Peter Vicente in a 1-0 win against Bury at Spotland.

Probably the good news for Burnley is Marvin Bartley is not currently with us. He's yellow carded him in each of his last three Burnley games having previously carded him at Bournemouth.

His assistant referees tomorrow are Wayne Barratt (Worcestershire) and Robert Merchant (Staffordshire). The fourth official is Robert Ellis (West Midlands).

Previous Burnley Games

Season Opponents V Res Y R Burnley Players Carded               2003/04 WATFORD h 2-3 2 0 n Blake, Branch 2004/05 WOLVES a 0-2 2 1 n McGreal n McGreal 2006/07 HARTLEPOOL h 0-1 0 1 n Thomas 2006/07 COLCHESTER a 0-0 2 0 n Lafferty, J O'Connor 2008/09 CRYSTAL PALACE h 4-2 3 0   2010/11 PORTSMOUTH h 1-1 3 0   2011/12 BRIGHTON h 1-0 7 0 n Bartley, McCann, Ings, Edgar, Grant 2012/13 MIDDLESBROUGH a 2-3 2 0 n Bartley 2012/13 BARNSLEY h 1-1 3 0 n Bartley

Source: Clarets Mad

Source: FOOTYMAD