This will be Mason's sixth Burnley game but if we had a poll for which one he'll be best remembered it will undoubtedly be the first of the five so far, the home defeat to Preston in December 2007 when he had what could only be described as a nightmare, a nightmare that started with the very first attack of the game when he failed to spot a deliberate handball on the line.
In my report for that game I wrote: "Referees will make mistakes, we can't expect them not to, but we can expect them to get a few more decisions right than this incompetent official did and we can expect him to referee the game in some sort of fair manner. Mason got it horribly wrong on so many counts, and his performance in this keenly awaited derby proved to make a massive contribution to the game's outcome."
Only Mason will know why on earth he didn't give the penalty and send off Matt Hill that day. A season later he refereed the same fixture when most of the poor decisions seemed to go our way and later in the season he was the man in charge when the wind blew at Bloomfield Road and caused havoc on the pitch and in the Gene Kelly.
Since, he's refereed us just twice and both came early in our Premier League season. They were the away game at Liverpool and the home fixture against Wigan which was two years ago next Monday.
He's a referee I do tend to notice in televised games and he certainly has more than his fair share of controversial moments.
One thing we can be fairly sure on and that is there will be some cards. Only once since November 2008 has he had a card free game but thankfully it is almost a year since he last produced his red card.
He got off to a rapid start this season with 19 yellow cards in his first three games, but that's slowed down and after six games he's handed out 28 with 13 of them going to home team players and 15 to away team players.
Four of those games have been in the Premier League with one in the Championship (Millwall v West Ham) and one Carling Cup tie. His last game came two weeks ago last Saturday when he took charge of the Premier League game between Sunderland and West Brom at the Stadium of Light. That was his quietest game yet with just two yellows, for Sunderland's Lee Cattermole and Sebastian Larsson.
I haven't a clue what to expect from him tonight, but suffice to say, given our record of referees at Oakwell, it leaves me very uneasy.
The assistant referees are Simon Bennett (Staffordshire) and Richard West (East Yorkshire). The fourth official is Football League referee Paul Tierney (Wigan).
Previous Burnley Games
Season Opponents V Res Y R Burnley Players Carded 2007/08 Preston North End h 2-3 2 2 n McCann, Gudjonsson n Elliott 2008/09 Preston North End h 3-1 4 1 2008/09 Blackpool a 1-0 5 0 n Kalvenes, McDonald 2009/10 Liverpool a 0-4 2 0 n Jordan Eagles 2009/10 Wigan Athletic h 1-3 2 0 n Carlisle, AlexanderSource: FOOTYMAD
