Phillips takes charge of Swindon clash - referee
Monday, 26th Aug 2013 14:36 by Clive Whittingham

Police officer David Phillips is the man in the middle at Loftus Road on Tuesday as League One outfit Swindon visit in the League Cup.

Referee >>> David Phillips (West Sussex), his first QPR appointment since 2010. Swindon have only ever lost one of seven matches when he has been in charge.

Assistants >>> Neil Hair (Cambridgeshire) and Paul Harris (Kent)

Fourth Official >>> Ian Crouch (Kent)

Previously

http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/10129/patched-up-qp 3 Preston 1, Saturday November 22, 2010, Championship

To their credit the visiting team didn’t let their heads go down straight away, and rallied to cause a few nervy moments in a prolonged period of pressure just after the ten minute mark. The whole heart stopping sequence of events began with a sliced clearance from Paddy Kenny which dropped 30 yards out from his goal where Matt Connolly was penalised by referee David Phillips for trying to lever Adam Barton out of the way as the ball dropped. Michael Tonge went for goal from the set piece but found the ample frame of Leon Clarke in the way and it deflected out for a throw in. From that Iain Hume tried his luck from the edge of the area and saw his shot deflected wide and when QPR failed to clear their lines from the corner adequately Clint Hill was then penalised on the edge of the area leading to another free kick that in turn led to another scramble in the Rangers’ penalty area. When the ball was finally cleared and the home side launched a much needed counter attack that ended when Kyle Walker’s back post cross was turned behind for a corner which came to nothing.

The early goal was just what QPR needed, but the repost from Preston served to focus minds on the task in hand and between the twentieth minute and the half hour Rangers created three great chances for a second goal. Not before the most blatant piece of cheating you’re likely to see at Loftus Road this season from somebody other than Adel Taarabt though. The disgraceful act was the work of Preston centre half Sean St Ledger — once a hot property on the cusp of a big money move to Middlesbrough, now a flimsy, nervous wreck of a centre half who struggled to cope with Hulse all day and looked like a player several leagues above his true level.

It began with a simple ball knocked up towards Hulse and St Ledger midway inside the Preston half — it haad fractured skull written all over it as both players wholeheartedly set off on a collision course to try and win the initial header. The collision looked sickening from the front of F Block and I feared the worst when St Ledger immediately hit the floor clutching his head and didn’t move. The referee obviously thought the same, he immediately stopped the play and summoned medical treatment and several seconds passed with a worried hush descending on Loftus Road as fans from both sides waited to see if the player was alright. Suddenly the situation changed. St Ledger, signing in at the Pearly gates one minute, leapt to his feet and angrily lunged at Hulse’s throat. Whether he was angry with the initial challenge, which was a fair one, or something Hulse had subsequently said who can know but having pretended, and there is no other word for it, to be seriously hurt to then spring up and start a fight was absolutely disgraceful behaviour and the referee rightly showed him a yellow card. St Ledger was cheating to try and get Hulse booked, simple as that, and any sympathy I may have held for his clear, total and utter loss of form and confidence in recent weeks evaporated in that moment.

Within five minutes it was Mackie’s turn to approach the Preston goal at pace after robbing Brown of the ball. Lonergan made a decent save one on one from the striker and only Leon Clarke will know how he failed to find the target with the rebound which he lifted high over the bar with most of the goal to aim at. Clarke did have the ball in the net ten minutes before half time but referee Phillips disallowed what would have been his first for the club for either a non-existent foul on Lonergan in the build-up or handball as the ball arrived back with Clarke — the decision was an early Christmas present for the goalkeeper who had come for a ball that was never his, wildly flapped it straight to Clarke and been clinically punished.

QPR: Kenny 6, Walker 8, Hall 7 (Rowlands 81, -), Gorkss 8, Hill 7, Connolly 6, Faurlin 7, Mackie 7 (Andrade 88, -), Taarabt 8, Clarke 6, Hulse 7 (Agyemang 80, -)

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Leigertwood, Helguson, Ephraim

Goals: Hulse 4 (assisted Walker), Taarabt 56 (assisted Hulse), 84 (assisted Clarke)

Preston: Lonergan 3, Gray 5, Brown 5, St. Ledger 4, De Laet 5, Tonge 5, Barton 6, Russell 5, Pugh 4, Parkin 5, Hume 5

Subs Not Used: Arestidou, Morgan, James, Mayor, Parry, Jones, McLaughlin

Booked: St. Ledger (play acting/fighting)

Goals: Connolly 88 og (assisted Hume)

Referee: David Phillips (West Sussex) 8 Not much to referee, and I thought Clarke’s goal in the first half should have stood, but other than that he got very little wrong and deserves credit for acting against St Ledger’s histrionics in the first half.

QPR 2 Bristol City 1, December 26, 2009, Championship

David Phillips’ only QPR appointment to date was the Boxing Day fixture from last season against Bristol City. You may recall this was the day that Paul Hart added a defensive midfielder and two full backs to a team that already had two defensive midfielders, two centre halves and two full backs in it to protect a miserable 2-1 advantage and incurred the wrath of the Loftus Road crowd in the process. For some reason, possibly my own sanity, the match report from that game was lost in the site move during the summer so we have no summary of Mr Phillips performance other than to say he booked three Bristol City players and none of ours and didn’t do anything awful that made him stand out in my memory.

QPR: Cerny, Hall, Ramage, Gorkss, Williams, Leigertwood, Routledge, Watson, Buzsaky (Borrowdale, 83 ) , Faurlin (Agyemang, 62 ) , Simpson (Connolly, 83 )

Subs not used: Taarabt, Balanta, Taylor, Pellicori,

Bristol C: Gerken, Orr, Fontaine, McAllister, Carey, Williams ( Clarkson, 70 ) , Skuse, Hartley, Maynard, Haynes ( Sproule, 82 ) , Saborio ( Sno, 70 )

Subs not used: Elliott, Nyatanga, Henderson, Edwards

Bookings: Haynes , Maynard , Sno

Stats

Phillips has only refereed one match so far this season — York’s 0-0 draw with Hartlepool last week in League Two. He showed two yellow cards in that match.

Last season he showed 116 yellows and eight reds in 33 matches (3.51 bookings a game). Those matches were mainly spread across the bottom two divisions with just three Championship appointments among them. He was in charge of Swindon twice, for a 1-0 home win against MK Dons and 1-1 draw with Doncaster Rovers at the County Ground. The MK Dons fixture, played back in August, saw visiting defender Dean Lewington sent off before half time. Of his eight red cards in the season, four of them came bunched up together in three matches in November which included his biggest haul of the season — seven yellows and one red — at Crawley v Walsall and four yellows and two reds in a match between Bristol Rovers and Bradford.

The previous season, 2011/12, he showed 102 yellows and eight reds in 33 appointments (3.09 bookings a game). That included two yellows when Swindon beat Wimbledon 2-0 in January, and seven when they won 5-0 at home to Port Vale in April. Swindon have only lost one of seven appointments with this referee during his career — a 3-0 defeat at Leyton Orient in February 2011.

Other Listings

League Cup >>> Gavin Ward has Premier League Hull’s trip to League One leaders Leyton Orient; Stuart Attwell has the televised (why?) clash between Liverpool and Notts County; Andy D’Urso has West Brom v Newport County.

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