Taylor gets Lancashire derby

He was at the Turf last season for the Carling Cup tie against Wolves but his last visit in the league came towards the end of the 2000/01 season when he yellow carded seven players and sent off Jason Koumas in our 2-1 win over Tranmere.

Over the last couple of seasons his card count seems to have dropped somewhat. He was a referee who tended to average around four cards per game but this season he’s nowhere near those sort of figures.

He’s had his mad moments, and handed out nine cards in the Championship game between Norwich and Millwall but he’s had five card free games and in 24 games has issued 68 yellow cards and 4 red cards.

Of those cards, 30 of the yellow cards have gone to home players whilst 38 have been given to away players. All four of the players he has sent off have been from the away teams. They are Stoke’s Junior in a 4-2 defeat at Leicester, Barry Hayles of Millwall in the previously mentioned game at Norwich which ended 1-1, Cardiff’s Darren Purse in a 2-0 defeat at Hull and finally Gary Elphick of Brighton in their 5-1 reverse at Reading.

Overall, we’ve not had much in the way of problems with him and he’s had a couple of high profile games at Burnley. He was referee for the nail biting last game of the 1997/98 season against Plymouth and the last game of the last millennium when Payts got his hat trick against Oxford.

And although he was referee when we went down to a 3-0 defeat at Reading three seasons ago, he could hardly be blamed for that as we turned in one of our most inept performances in years.

He will be assisted tomorrow by Carl Bassindale and David Benton (both Yorkshire) whilst Lancashire referee Lee Mason will act as fourth official.

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