Ref Watch: Northampton Town (A)

Referee: OLLIE YATES
Assistants: James Vallance and Samuel Fudge
Fourth Official: Craig Hicks

Tomorrow night we will have Ollie Yates officiating our encounter with the Cobblers.

We have seen Yates a few times, once as the fourth official during our game against Gillingham at the Bank when we lost 3-0. It wasn’t a great night for us as Lincoln fans, and one imagines Mr Yates went back to Yate, or wherever he came from, with a bit of an earache from the famous old antagonist Steve Evans.

As an official, we first crossed paths with Ollie Yates in 2015/16 during a game in which we drew 1-1 with Altrincham. He handed out two bookings, and considering we had Alan Power playing and he wasn’t booked, it seems like a rather low-key affair. He was back later in the season, another 1-1 draw at the Bank; this time, he did book Power, as well as three Gateshead players. At the end of the season, he was promoted to the Football League and didn’t have the honour of officiating the DC-era National League team.

Toffollo, who could have been sent off at Yeovil – Credit Graham Burrell

I wonder if he suffered an injury as he refereed until October 2016 but then dropped off the radar until March 2018. Whatever the story, he took charge of 19 games across two seasons, before picking up 37 in 2018/19. Of those 37, only one was a Lincoln game, away at Yeovil where we won 2-0. He didn’t show a red card, but Harry Toffolo should have got one for a shocking high boot.

In 2019/20, rather curiously, he refereed us home and away against Blackpool. The first game was Michael Appleton’s first in charge, whilst the second was, somewhat ironically, our first without Harry Toffolo. We won that encounter 1-0, and I said of the official: “Yates had a good game throughout to be fair to him, he let the contest flow and rarely put a foot wrong (apart from signalling advantage with one arm which confused me at times). He was also the official at the centre of Boston’s York Street FA Cup heartbreak, as they lost 2-1 to Rochdale in the last cup game at York Street.

Imps v Wycombe Credit Graham Burrell

He took charge of a tough game for us in 2021/22, the 1-1 draw at the Bank with Wycombe, and I remarked: “I’ve seen some criticism of the referee, and I get why; he missed some pretty rough handling of our players and seemed, from an Imps perspective, to let a bit go, but on the whole, I wasn’t angry at him at all. If anything, his biggest error was apparently not realising he’d booked Josh Scowen for a foul, and then sending him off late on. That’s what Gareth Ainsworth thinks happened, but I don’t think any foul or offence should ever be judged on whether the player is already on a card. It’s called sensible refereeing when they do, but if Scowen has committed an offence, and he’s on a yellow, and it’s the last minute of the game, he’s probably getting sent off. I also thought he missed a penalty to them in the first half, so we can’t really complain.”

Last season he took control of our home tie with Fleetwood early doors, but he didn’t impress me again. “Ollie Yates began to confuse me. We benefitted from his first error; he got in the way of the ball during a Fleetwood attack and rather than picking up and starting with a drop ball, as are the rules, he let us play on and turned it into an attack. It was the first decision he made that baffled me, but certainly not the last, not by a long, long way. It’s easy to say the referee didn’t affect the result, but he did, without a doubt. Had he called some of the decisions differently, we’d have comfortably won the game; that’s a fact.”

He’s had three matches so far this season, one in League One, League Two and the EFL Cup. Hard to ascertain if he’s been good or bad, but he has awarded two penalties, including one for Pompey against Orient.