Referee: Kirsty Dowle
Assistant Referees: Danny Jarvis, William Cavanagh
Fourth Official: Ben Speedie
It’s a new face for us this weekend – Kirsty Dowle will be our first female official of the 2025/26 season.
She’s recently been the victim of misogynistic abuse by a manager – Barnet’s Dean Brennan was banned from the touchline for nine matches for abusing Dowle during their September game against Shrewsbury Town.
Kirsty is a Women’s Super League referee who has done five League Two matches and a couple of League One matches. At our level, she’s done Port Vale and Peterborough, as well as Wycombe and Doncaster last weekend. Mainly, she’s done National League, and I am not always a big fan of officials doing League One and National League in the same season, as they’re completely different levels.
Taking her League Two record, as there are more matches to get a balance of her style, she is 56 out of 76 for fouls per game. She is 68/76 for fouls per tackle, which suggests she often lets the game flow and lets a bit go. She’s 65th for yellows per game, which also suggests a degree of consistency – you want to see all those numbers grouped together. If she didn’t give many fouls, but was high up for yellows, you could see an element of inconsistency in how hard a referee officiates their matches.
She’s yet to give a red, and has awarded just one League Two penalty, for MK Dons against Grimsby a couple of weeks ago.
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