Referee: Stephen Martin
Assistant Referees: Bhupinder Singh Gill, Lee Venamore
Fourth Official: James Durkin
I’ve moaned plenty about us getting referees up from the National League, but this weekend, we’ve got one coming down from the Championship.
That’s not in a relegation sense – he’s a Championship referee who has officiated Preston and Hull, Oxford and Birmingham in his last two games. He does drop into League One every so often, but it is a rare foray into the depths of the lower EFL. In fact, he’s had one game at this level and one in League Two all season.
We have seen him before. He was a National League referee and we had him four times during the 2011/12 season. That’s not on Soccerbase, but the ever-trustworthy Transfermarkt suggest he took charge of our 1-1 draw with Stockport County, our 1-0 defeat at Luton (two sent off), a 1-1 draw with Kidderminster and a 3-0 win against Ebbsfleet.
In 2012/13 he was promoted, and we were not. In 2016/17 we were promoted and by then, Mr Martin was already dipping his toe in Championship waters. We’ve had him just once since, as we brushed aside Fleetwood in the early part of the 2019/20 season.
Martin was also the referee for that difficult night at Leyton Orient when Derek Reynolds tragically passed away.
In terms of his performance, he’s 10th out of 39 for fouls per game in the Championship, having taken 15 matches. That’s consistent with his fouls per tackle (13th) and his penalties per game (15th). He averages 4.4 yellows per game, 8th highest, but there is no huge variation, which could suggest he’s had some tough matches. I worry if fouls per game is top ten, but yellows bottom ten, for example, as it shows a disparity, whereas everything being around the same shows consistency.
I look at Rate The Ref for an overview of performance and there isn’t a lot of negativity on there, which is good. He did get criticised a little for allowing time wasting in one game, but that’s one in more than 100 since coming into the EFL, so is probably anecdotal rather than a reflection of him as a referee.
Also, he’s pretty stacked and has a hand tattoo, so I can’t see him being a pushover.