Referee: PAUL HOWARD
Assistants: Danny Gratton and Ryan Whitaker
Fourth Official: Mark Jones
We’ve only had Paul Howard once at Sincil Bank, and on that occasion, he awarded a penalty to our opponents, AFC Wimbledon. However, it was a justified penalty, Conor McGrandles fouling Luke McCormick and Aaron Pressely scoring from the spot. It was an awful game; we lost 1-0 and reading back he wasn’t popular with everyone. “It’s an odd one with the ref, the stands were incandescent with rage over some decisions, but from our vantage point we couldn’t see what the fuss was about,” I wrote. “The foul on Scully wasn’t a penalty, and whilst he missed the odd free kick, he wasn’t as bad as some. He clamped down on their time-wasting with a flurry of yellow cards, which isn’t always easy to do, and I was genuinely shocked when I saw the reaction at half time.”
There’s not a lot more for us to judge him on, other than how he’s done this season. He’s flashed a couple of red cards, one to an AFC Wimbledon player, and awarded a penalty against them, which feels quite poetic. Oddly, in the other two matches he has sent a player off, he has also awarded a penalty to the team with 11 in a separate incident, in games between Sutton and Walsall and Gillingham and Swindon.
In his seven League One matches this season, he has proven himself to avoid blowing the whistle too much – he’s 53rd out of 60 for fouls per game, with fewer than 20. Fouls per tackle, he’s even lower, 58th out of 60, which suggests he’s a man who lets the game flow freely. He’s 53rd for yellows per game as well, issuing fewer than three, on average, per outing. He could be much like our official from last Tuesday, who allowed the game to flow between us and Barnsley with little interruption.
He’s 34/60 for penalties per game, but with just seven League One matches, it’s not a huge number – 0.14 per game, or one over the whole season. That was in the Derby and Charlton game, but it is worth noting that he is eighth out of 62 in League Two for penalties per game, averaging one every three matches. My advice for the players this week? Don’t shirk a good, meaty 50/50 in the middle of the park, but make sure there are no trailing legs in the area, especially if we’ve had a man sent off!
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