Highly rated Hooper takes crunch Wigan clash — referee
Monday, 24th Mar 2014 19:17 by Clive Whittingham

Simon Hooper, the top scoring referee on LFW this season, is the man in the middle for the R's top six showdown with Wigan at Loftus Road on Tuesday night.

Referee >>> Simon Hooper (Wiltshire), rated nine out of ten in his previous QPR appointment this season at home to Huddersfield.

Assistants >>> Steven Finch ( Southampton ) and Ian Rathbone (Northants)

Fourth Official >>> Andy Davies (Hampshire)

Previously

QPR 2 Huddersfield Town 1, Saturday January 18, 2014, Championship

On several occasions Rangers were forced to commit cynical fouls to bring threatening counter attacks to a close. Murray Wallace struck a powerful free kick straight into Andy Johnson’s face on the end of the wall after Clint Hill felled Ward on the edge of the area. Then Gary O’Neil chopped down Paul Dixon on the other side of the area with the time barely into double figures and Oliver Norwood took a turn with a direct shot that flew through the wall and was well saved by Rob Green. Later, in three minutes of first half stoppage time, Hill was rightly yellow carded by referee Simon Hooper for hauling down Hammill 20 yards from goal and Paul Dixon had a shot blocked away. And with only four minutes left for play Carroll himself was booked for a deliberate trip on Huddersfield substitute Sean Scannell as he threatened to race away into space hunting a late equaliser.

Johnson’s yellow card on the stroke of half time for a wild challenge on Adam Clayton summed up the frustration and — yet again — surgery was required on the QPR side at half time, with Matt Phillips introduced to offer an outlet wide right, and Gary O’Neil withdrawn after another ineffective display. Copying and pasting from previous weeks, it is a concern that Harry Redknapp is being required to raid his bench so early in games, so often.

QPR: Green 7; Simpson 7, Dunne 6, Hill 6, Assou-Ekotto 7; Kranjcar 6, Carroll 5, Henry 6, O’Neil 5 (Phillips 45, 7); Johnson 6 (Traore 81, 7), Austin 7

Subs not used: Wright-Phillips, Onuoha, Diakite, Zamora , Murphy

Goals: Austin 55 (assisted Johnson), 79 (assisted Assou-Ekotto)

Bookings: Johnson 43 (foul), Hill 45+2 (foul), Carroll 86 (foul)

Huddersfield: Smithies 6; Wallace 6, Gerrard 6, Smith 6; Dixon 6, Hogg 7, Clayton 7, Norwood 6 (Scannell 67, 7), Hammill 7 (Gobern 78, 6); Ward 5 ( Vaughan 51, 6) Wells 7

Subs not used: Woods, Bennett, Lolley, Holmes

Goals: Wells 68 (assisted Hammill)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 9 No complaints with any of the bookings, allowed the game to flow well and stayed well out of the way. Easy to see why he’s so highly rated at the moment, and probably destined for the Premier League next season

Swansea 0 QPR 0, Tuesday October 19, 2010, Championship

The game became rather bad tempered thereafter. Kapsars Gorkss picked up the first yellow card for cracking a shot in on goal after the whistle had been blown — harsh, but in fairness to referee Simon Hooper he had let Alejandro Faurlin off with the same thing a minute or so earlier and warned both the Argentinean and Taarabt the captain. QPR were clearly motivated by a desire to prevent Swansea taking quick free kicks, which they did religiously, while players were out of position. Gary Monk quickly levelled the card count for a crude tackle from behind on Adel Taarabt just as he was in full flight approaching the Swansea penalty area.

The rising temperature of the game was not helped by the Swansea crowd’s insistence on leaping up as one and literally screaming at the referee whenever even the most meagre foul was committed by a QPR player, or Shaun Derry’s method of following the referee around and chivvying him about what he should or shouldn’t do. I actually thought, with little Football League experience behind him, Hooper did a thoroughly decent job of managing a set of poorly behaved players and over excitable fans.

The key incident of the half came five minutes before half time as Swansea launched a swift counter attack with Darren Pratley running away down the left wing. QPR seemed to have escaped from the move without too many problems when Pratley, lacking the pace of a Dyer or Sinclair, was caught and then faced up by Shaun Derry on the corner of the penalty box but having worked back so well the visitors then self destructed when Clint Hill arrived late on the scene, barged into Pratley and sent him sprawling across the ground for a penalty. Soft? Perhaps. Pratley was named by Angel Rangel as the man with the “best physique” in the Swansea squad in his programme interview before this game and yet he hit the deck here as if he was made of tissue paper. But it was a penalty all the same, a foolish challenge from Hill, and the only controversy about it was that the linesman who signalled for the foul clearly held out his flag for a free kick before then seemingly changing his mind after a couple of seconds and drawing it back across his chest for a penalty.

Ultimately it didn’t matter. David Cotterill, showing all the subtlety of a house brick in picking which side he was going to send the ball, saw his spot kick comfortably saved by Paddy Kenny diving down to his right. Kenny had dived left for Wes Hoolahan’s miss in the Norwich game on Saturday and perhaps that was in Cotterill’s mind as he placed the ball — he certainly made his intentions so obvious even the QPR fans behind the goal on the front row picked which side he was going before he kicked it. Cotterill was withdrawn at half time and replaced by Joe Allen — although it wasn’t clear whether that change would have been made regardless of the penalty miss. Allen was a brilliant addition to the game — providing a previously absent element of pace, skill and vision to the Swansea midfield allied with an admirable work rate.

Alejandro Faurlin became the latest player booked around the hour mark when he attempted to hack down Nathan Dyer during a counter attack. The Swansea player kept his feet and set off down field on a mission that eventually fizzled out into nothing but the referee kept the incident in mind and returned to book Faurlin at the first opportunity.

QPR were very lucky not to be reduced to ten men ten minutes from time and having done so much good on the night I’m afraid to say it was Taarabt letting himself down in this instance. It all started to bubble up right in front of the dugouts, with Taarabt about to be substituted for Tommy Smith. The ball went out for a throw in that the referee decreed should be taken by Swansea — Taarabt disagreed with this and picked the ball up which in turn caused a flash point with Joe Allen who tried to wrestle it back from his grasp. Taarabt did release the ball, but also lashed out. Luckily this was more Audley Harrison than David Haye and missed Allen’s face with distance to spare — had it connected Taarabt would have been sent off and I said at the time that we’d be well served to get the change made before the throw in was taken because you could just see what was coming next.

Grumpy, sulky and feeling wronged Taarabt stomped around for 30 seconds like a spoilt two year old before, wouldn’t you just know it, Allen collected the ball right on the touchline in front of him. Like a council house on Merseyside housing a pit bull and a three year old — disaster was inevitable. Taarabt needlessly launched himself into an eye watering lunge that left Allen writhing in agony on the ground and the Swansea players and bench piling in to surround the referee and QPR player. It took a long time for the fuss to die down, and Keith Curle and Shaun Derry certainly did more than their fair share of work in keeping a crowd of Swansea players out of the referee’s face and away from Taarabt. As he had done all evening Mr Hooper refereed sensibly — calming the situation and then doing everything in his power to keep 22 men on the pitch. Taarabt was booked (as was Angel Rangel who voiced his complaints too vehemently) and immediately replaced by Smith. To be honest, I thought he should have been sent off.

Swansea: De Vries 7, Williams 7, Tate 8, Monk 7, Rangel 7, Cotterill 6 (Allen 46, 8), Pratley 7, Orlandi 7 (Beattie 85, -), Dyer 5, Sinclair 6, Dobbie 7 (Nouble 65, 4)

Subs Not Used: Taylor , Serran, Ma-Kalambay, Emnes

Booked: Monk (foul), Tate (foul), Pratley (foul), Rangel (dissent)

QPR: Kenny 8, Walker 7, Gorkss 7, Connolly 8, Hill 6, Derry 7, Faurlin 7, Ephraim 5 (Clarke 88, -), Taarabt 7 (Smith 80, 7),Helguson 6 (Agyemang 80, 6), Mackie 6

Subs Not Used: Orr, Cerny, Hall, Mahon

Booked: Gorkss (kicking ball away), Faurlin (foul), Taarabt (foul)

Referee: Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 7 Not an easy game for an inexperienced official, but one I thought he handled well. Of the seven bookings only Gorkss could count himself unlucky as he genuinely didn’t seem to hear the whistle, although Faurlin had done the same thing a minute or so earlier and been warned and QPR were clearly wary of quick Swansea free kicks so maybe he knew what he was doing. The rest of the bookings were correct, as was the penalty decision although the linesman did his best to bollocks that one up with mixed signals. Taarabt and Tate could count themselves lucky to stay on the field but overall I liked his sensible, calm approach to what was a very physical game and it is to his credit that it finished 11 a side.

Stats

So far this season Hooper has shown 105 yellows and four reds in 29 matches (3.62 yellows a game) split across the Football League and League Cup. He’s clearly a man who’s highly thought of, not only getting the Burnley v QPR clash of the top two but also the Forest v Derby match — it seems a promotion could be just around the corner. That East Midlands derby game was, unsurprisingly, his biggest card haul in a single game so far this season with six yellows and a red shown.

Last season he showed 109 yellows (2.725 a game) and five reds in 40 games. His biggest haul in a single matchw as seven yellows at Ipswich v Palace. He refereed Burnley ’s 1-0 win at Charlton in March, showing four yellow cards which all went to the visiting players, and the season before took them for a 1-0 win at Millwall.

Other Listings

Premier League Young Michael Oliver's stock continues to rise, and this week he is trusted with the Man Utd v Man City derby game at Old Trafford.

Championship Two premier League referees drop down to the second tier this week with Mark Clattenburg taking Bolton v Blackpool, and Anthony Taylor refereeing Brighton's trip to Sheffield Wednesday.

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Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

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