Referee: SEBASTIAN STOCKBRIDGE
Assistants: Christopher Husband and Steve Durnall
Fourth Official: Mark Jones
As you know, I have a pre-standing distaste for Stockbridge, which stems from a game against Notts County, you may recall, where Billy Knott was sent off for a high boot (the like we see every week these days), and in a game we ended up losing 4-1.
Since then, he’s not been all that unfair to us, but he does like the roar of the home crowd. He awarded us a penalty in a 2-0 win against Accrington, which wasn’t one at all, and the red card he flashed was rescinded too. I also felt he let us off the hook as we beat Bury 2-1, sending a player off and giving us a penalty too. All three were big games at the top of the table; all three saw the visitors reduced to ten men. I’ve said before he likes the roar of the home crowd.
In fairness, he was also in charge of our game against Morecambe in the title-winning season, showing just three yellow cards as we brushed them aside by three goals to one, and I thought he had a decent game back then. He also took charge of our 0-0 draw with Hull, and he didn’t get a mention from me at all and sent off Herbie Kane as Morgan Whittaker made his debut in our 2-0 win against Oxford in 2022. I wouldn’t want to taint him with the one bad game he had against us in 2017, but I always seem to. There have been far, far worse than him since then, that’s for sure. We saw him last season as we drew 1-1 with MK Dons, and again, he didn’t seem bad at all.
This season he’s had six matches and awarded 30 yellows, averaging five per game, which is high. He gave eight in the Crewe and Port Vale game and has awarded one penalty so far – to the away team (Bradford) in their 1-1 draw with Stockport. The only player he has sent off this season was Wigan’s Charlie Hughes against Barnsley, also benefitting the away team.
Maybe he isn’t a homer after all. Let’s hope!
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