Referee: ANTHONY BACKHOUSE
Assistants: Gareth Viccars and Hugh Gilroy
Fourth Official: Damith Bandara
Anthony Backhouse first took charge of an Imps game back in our National League days, as we beat Tamworth 2-1. I remember the game well, Lee Hendrie played for them, and it was a win that pushed us into the final game away at Hyde and ultimately survival for the second year in a row. Going into the game was perhaps the nadir of our National League days after that, Gary Simpson began the turnaround, and we weren’t seriously in relegation trouble again.
We were pumped 5-1 at Halifax on December 28th the following season, which could well be described as a low of sorts. Backhouse was in charge, and he sent off Alan Power after 12 minutes, rightly so, before our late capitulation. Other notable non-league games he took charge of included the 2-1 win against Tranmere, where Andy Mangan dived to win a penalty, and our televised 2-0 win against Dagenham and Redbridge.
He has been in control of several matches of ours in the Football League, one of the more notable being our 2-1 win at Stevenage, during which Matt Green was sent off for two bookings. They were both spot-on, one for encroaching on the kick-off and another for kicking the ball away. However, he also gave the penalty from which Ollie Palmer netted the winner.
More recently, he officiated the 6-0 home reverse against Oxford, in which the only abhorrent displays were from our players, and in the 2020/21 season, he was in charge of our 0-0 draw with Fleetwood. In that game, he could have dismissed Alex Palmer for a challenge on Harvey Saunders, and a more enthusiastic referee may have done. Instead, he controlled the game relatively well, I felt, despite it being a bit competitive in places.
The last time we had him officiating one of our league games was last season, as we beat Northampton 2-1. Once again, he did very little to concern Imps supporters. Since then, he’s reffed three Imps games, all of them wins. One was Northampton when crowds were locked out due to Covid, and the most recent was our 2-1 win against Morecambe on a freezing cold night earlier this year. This season, he took control of our 3-0 win at Doncaster in the League Cup.
He’s an official that likes to let things flow – he’s 47/60 in terms of fouls awarded per game, at 20.64, below the average of 21.99. He’s 35th for fouls per tackle, suggesting he has some of the easier games to officiate, but surprisingly he’s 8th for yellows per game. It hints to me that whilst he does let things go, if you do commit a foul he’s not happy with, you’re as likely to get a yellow as a ticking off.
In our division, he’s only sent one player off this season, Joe Morrell, and the last penalty he awarded was against Grimsby Town as lowly Hartlepool thrashed them 4-1 at Blunder Park.
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