I suppose we could say it is two successive Saturdays that we've had Premier League referees but Craig Pawson, who refereed the Blackburn game, has only once had a top flight game whereas Probert has been refereeing in the Premier League since January 2007 when he refereed Sheffield United v Portsmouth at Bramall Lane.
He's now become an established Select Group referee. He refereed 34 games last season of which only four were Football League games. He's also now a Fifa official but hasn't refereed a game in Europe since Academica Coimbra v Atletico Madrid in the Europa League last season.
We haven't seen much of him in recent years. He refereed us only once in the Premier League, at Old Trafford against Man United, and he's had just one Burnley game since, the 0-0 home draw against Derby in January 2012.
His first ever Burnley game was a major worry. He was awful in a game against Plymouth at Home Park in the 2004/05 season, but there is no doubt that he's a much improved referee now and has become one of the country's top officials.
Tomorrow will be his fourth game of the season. Predictably the other three have all been in the Premier League. He's been quiet with his cards too. There have been just two yellow cards in those three games and one red card, that to John O'Shea in Sunderland's 3-1 defeat at Crystal Palace when O'Shea received a blasting from his manager Paolo Di Canio.
There was a yellow card in that game too, for Palace's Damien Delaney. The other yellow came in his last game which was the 1-1 draw between Fulham and West Brom at Craven Cottage last week. The player carded was former Preston full back Billy Jones who we remember getting sent off at the Turf three years ago in a 4-3 win against Preston.
Probert is currently 37th in RATE THE REF with a rating of 63.43 out of 100.
The assistant referees tomorrow are Danny Gratton (Staffordshire) and Mark Scholes (Buckinghamshire). The fourth official is Probert's fellow Premier League referee Michael Oliver (Northumberland) who last refereed Burnley in last season's 1-0 home win against Blackpool.
Previous Burnley Games
Season Opponents V Res Y R Burnley Players Carded 2004/05 PLYMOUTH a 0-1 5 0 n Grant, Branch, McGreal 2005/06 LEICESTER a 1-0 3 0 n Hyde, Sinclair 2005/06 CREWE h 3-0 2 0 n Duff 2006/07 CRYSTAL PALACE a 2-2 1 0 n Hyde 2007/08 BARNSLEY a 1-1 2 0 n Caldwell 2008/09 BIRMINGHAM h 1-1 3 0 n Carlisle, Thompson 2008/09 CARDIFF a 1-3 5 0 n Carlisle, Elliott, Kalvenes, Williams 2009/10 MAN UTD a 0-3 0 0 2011/12 DERBY h 0-0 5 0 n Mee, MarneySource: Clarets Mad
Source: FOOTYMAD
