Much has been said and written about Attwell who became a Football League referee ahead of the 2007/08 season and was fast tracked to the Premier League where he refereed his first game just a year later, Blackburn's 1-1 home draw against Hull.
At the time he was aged just 25 and the catalogue of howlers were not too far away. Just four weeks later he was caught up in the phantom goal episode at Watford and soon after turned a Derby v Forest game into pure farce with a string of horrendous decisions.
That was only the start but he upset West Brom fans back in 2009 when he opted to ignore to the fact that messages of condolence for Sir Bobby Robson were being announced and decided to start the game in a pre-season friendly.
Incredibly he even refereed a game in the Europa League and was heavily condemned as he issued ten yellow cards in a tie between PSV Eindhoven and Hapoel Tel Aviv.
His luck eventually ran out and he's not refereed a game at the top level since he took charge of West Brom v Everton on New Year's Day 2012. Mike Riley axed him from the select group and it is not expected that he'll make a return.
Having said that, he's done okay when refereeing Burnley to be fair. There hasn't been too much to concern ourselves with other than his yellow carding of Dean Marney in last season's Cardiff game when he'd clearly been fouled.
He is currently in 40th place in RATE THE REF with a rating of 61.40 out of 100.
This season he's refereed 21 games. In those games he's shown 71 yellow cards and six red cards. Of those yellow cards, 31 have gone to home team players and 40 to away team players.
Only one of the six players he's sent off was a home player. That was Doncaster's Dean Furman in their 2-1 win against Yeovil. He's also sent off two other players in Championship games this season; they are Grant Hanley of Blackburn in a 2-1 defeat at Wigan and Reading's Chris Gunter in their 3-2 win at Forest.
Stuart Attwell's last game was Liverpool's 2-0 win against Oldham in the FA Cup two weeks ago. Liverpool's Raheem Sterling was yellow carded in that game as were Genseric Kusunga, Korey Smith and James Dayton of Oldham.
The assistant referees are Gary Hilton (Lancashire) and Tony Peart (North Yorkshire). The fourth official is Matthew Bristow (Manchester).
Previous Burnley Games
| Season | Opponents | V | Res | Y | R | Burnley Players Carded |
| 2009/10 | MANCHESTER CITY | a | 3-3 | 4 | 0 | n Bikey, Mears, Carlisle |
| 2009/10 | ASTON VILLA | a | 2-5 | 3 | 0 | n Carlisle, Fletcher, Nimani |
| 2010/11 | PORTSMOUTH | a | 2-1 | 2 | 0 | n Cork, Duff |
| 2011/12 | PORTSMOUTH | a | 5-1 | 6 | 0 | n Grant, Marney, Austin |
| 2012/13 | MILLWALL | a | 2-0 | 2 | 0 | n Vokes, Ings |
| 2012/13 | CARDIFF | h | 1-1 | 3 | 0 | n Trippier, Marney |