Referee: SEBASTIAN STOCKBRIDGE
Assistants: Paul Newhouse and Anthony Da Costa
Fourth Official: Paul Cooper
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 He awarded us a penalty in a 2-0 win against Accrington, which wasn’t one at all, and the red card he flashed was rescinded, too.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. 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 he 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 his one bad game 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 a couple of seasons ago as we drew 1-1 with MK Dons, and again, he didn’t seem bad at all. He was also in charge of our 3-1 win at Carlisle last season and again, didn’t get a mention at all.
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