Wright in charge of Huddersfield trip - referee
Monday, 24th Aug 2015 22:30 by Clive Whittingham

Kevin Wright is the man in the middle for QPR’s August bank Holiday fixture at Huddersfield Town.

Referee >>> Kevin Wright (Cambridgeshire), took the last game of the regular season in the 2013/14 promotion season as a scratchy QPR side won 3-2 at Barnsley.

Assistants >>> Glen Hart (County Durham) and Danny Markham (Tyne and Wear)

Fourth Official >>> David Webb (County Durham)

Previously

Barnsley 2 QPR 3, Saturday May 3, 2014, Championship

Donaldson celebrated the victory here as if QPR had won a major domestic trophy, leaping around and punching the air as the visiting players fled the traditional embarrassing pitch invasion by the local chavs. He could be reasonably pleased with his work, while taking plenty away to work on. He’s not quick, so his positional sense and reading of the game is going to be key. On a couple of occasions he was caught chasing after a striker back towards his own goal having been stripped for speed, and on another he was fortunate not to be booked by referee Kevin Wright for a cynical trip on Stephen Dawson after once again being caught too high up the field. He was helped by the presence of Nedum Onuoha alongside him — several times the former Man City man used his pace and athleticism to swoop in and haul Donaldson out of a sticky situation. Onuoha has been QPR’s form defender for the past six weeks and must start on Friday — though his presence in this starting eleven must place that in some doubt.

Barnsley: Steele 6; Kennedy 6, Ramage 6, Cranie 6, M'voto 5 (Bree 72, 6); O'Brien 6, Dawson 6 (Hassell 80, -), Jennings 6, Cywka 6 (Noble-Lazarus 72, 5), Rose 5, O’Grady 7

Subs not used: Dibble, Oates, Boakye-Yiadom, Cowgill

Goals: O’Grady 54 (assisted Jennings), 90 (unassisted)

QPR: Green 6; Hughes 6, Donaldson 6, Onuoha 7, Suk-Young 7; Henry 7, O’Neil 5; Benayoun 6 (Petrasso 76, 6), Doyle 6, Traore 6 (Kranjcar 57, 6); Austin 6 (Keane 57, 5)

Subs not used: Carroll, Hoilett, Murphy, Gibbons

Goals: Austin 42 (assisted Traore), Mvoto og 43 (assisted Doyle), Suk-Young 68 (unassisted)

Referee — Kevin Wright (Cambridgeshire) 8 Little to referee, no bookings, no moments of controversy and allowed the game to flow well enough. Generous not to book Donaldson for his first half foul.

QPR 2 Ipswich Town 0, Tuesday February 22, 2011, Championship

You’ll notice we’re a thousand words in already and the game hasn’t even started yet and I make no apologies for that. LFW match report notes are diligently taken during the game with a bookies pen on the back of a racing form and by half time they can often run to two sides. On Tuesday night they barely covered half a page by the time referee Kevin Wright drew the half to a close. QPR offered next to nothing, Ipswich held all of the ball but failed to make any inroads into the in form Rangers backline.

I can tell you, seen as we’ve mentioned him, that Kevin Wright awarded Ipswich a throw incorrectly after hedging a total guess after a couple of minutes. Then within a minute a clearance down the line by Orr flew into touch off Wickham only to again be awarded as a throw in to the visitors. Fitz Hall had the home fans groaning early on as well as he drew his foot back and planted a 50 yard pass straight into touch on the Ellerslie Road side of the ground. Both Wright and Hall would improve considerably as the night went on.

Right on the stroke of half time a counter attack with the otherwise anonymous Ishmael Miller at its heart almost broke the deadlock. Lee Martin had been flagged offside from an Ipswich free kick at the other end by referee Wright played on as Miller accelerated into the Town half and found Helguson. Miller then accelerated to get onto the end of the cross into the box and headed it down towards Routledge but Fulop raced from his line and claimed the ball first.

Things were starting to get going a bit now with QPR finding their feet in the game and restricting Bullard’s influence — he’ll get a seven at the end of this report by the way, eight for the first half and six for the second. The only real sight of goal Jason Scotland had all night came just before the hour mark when he appeared to handle on the edge of the area, not the first blatant handball from both sides missed by the referee, but was allowed to continue and got a shot away that Fitz Hall once again flung himself in the way of. Scotland, cheekily, appealed for handball by Hall but referee Wright waved the play on and Ishmael Miller stormed down field in a rare moment of effective play from him. Miller pushed the ball past Kennedy, probably too far, but the Irishman gave the referee an easy decision to make with a crude foul that drew the only yellow card of the game.

I’ve praised Fitz Hall so much in this report that I’ve had to check my reflection with the picture on my driving license to make sure I’m still the same person. Allow me to momentarily revert to type when I discuss his long throw. Rory Delap has a long throw. Andy Legg had a long throw. Dave Challinor had a bloody long throw. Fitz Hall does not have a long throw and furthermore, as a centre back, Hall is not well equipped to deal with the ball when it is inevitably cleared back to him by the first defender either, as happened in the sixty eighth minute here. His attempt at a cross was laughable, but not quite as bad as Taarabt’s platoon style dive on the other end of it presumably attempting to win a penalty but even a referee with a brown envelope stuffed with cash and a ‘From QPR with compliments’ slip inside it wouldn’t have given that.

The flowing football that QPR have produced at times this season had been sadly lacking to this point but it reared it’s beautiful head briefly 15 minutes from time when Miller got going down the right and fed Routledge who touched it off to Faurlin and he laid Taarabt into space in the area but the one touch passing move didn’t end with a goal as Taarabt’s first time shot flew straight at Fulop. Still, the brief interchange of slick passes was like a Glade plug in for a smoke logged room and lifted the mood somewhat. As did the return of Akos Buzsaky, on for Ishmael Miller who appeared to pull his hamstring when running down Damien Delaney who cheated to win a soft free kick that all referees give but they really shouldn’t.

Referee Wright added three minutes to the end of the game in which time Shittu, who’d taken a heavy blow to the face and was stretching muscles in his legs I didn’t even know existed, was replaced by Connolly. Priskin got in down the right channel but saw a low shot saved by Kenny with his legs from a tight angle. Dramatic late goals against Norwich, Leeds and Forest added to the mood as the general public went off into the damp Shepherd’s Bush air.

QPR: Kenny 7, Orr 6, Hall 8, Shittu 8 (Connolly 90, -), Hill 8, Derry 7, Faurlin 7, Routledge 6, Taarabt 6, Miller 6 (Buzsaky 75, 7), Helguson 6

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Gorkss, Hulse, Moen, Chimbonda

Goals: Hill 77 (assisted Taarabt), Helguson 83 (assisted Hill)

Ipswich: Fulop 5, Edwards 6, Delaney 7, McAuley 7, Kennedy 6, Bullard 7, Leadbitter 6, Healy 6 (Drury 40, 6), Martin 6 (Civelli 84, -), Wickham 7, Scotland 5 (Priskin 71, 5)

Subs Not Used: Lee-Barrett, Peters, Smith, O'Dea

Booked: Kennedy (foul)

Referee: Kevin Wright (Cambridgeshire) 7 Not too bad at all. There were three or four really obvious handballs that he missed, although they weren’t exactly key decisions, and a couple of early throw ins he got wrong. Ipswich will rightly be aggrieved over the Scotland and Kenny clash but I thought he called the Hall handball penalty appeal correctly.

Derby 0 QPR 2, Saturday January 17, 2009

The pattern of play soon reverted to type with Routledge cruelly tormenting Camara. The full back obviously had not learnt anything from his footballing lesson in the first half as he dived in on Routledge and then hauled him back by his shirt after he’d gone around him — referee Kevin Wright had enjoyed a quiet afternoon up to that point but had little option but to produce the yellow card for the first time.

Barnes was replaced by Barazite a short time later but QPR remained the better team and Sousa gave the dire Derby backline something else to think about when he sent Di Carmine on for Helguson. The Icelandic international had won plenty of flicks ons and worked reasonably hard, Di Carmine picked up where he left off — steady, unspectacular line running. Di Carmine drew a second booking of the game, for Andy Todd this time, when he outwitted the leaden footed centre half and then crashed to earth under a heavy tackle.

Derby: Carroll 5, Albrechtsen 5, Todd 4, Nyatanga 6, Camara 3, Barnes 6 (Barazite 70, 5), Green 6, Addison 7, Commons 6, Varney 4 (Davies 59, 6), Hulse 5

Subs Not Used: Bywater, Savage, Teale

Booked: Camara (foul), Todd (foul)

QPR: Cerny 7, Connolly 8, Gorkss 7, Stewart 7, Delaney 7, Routledge 9, Leigertwood 8, Mahon 8, Rowlands 6 (Ephraim 12, 8), Cook 6 (Alberti 90, -), Helguson 6 (Di Carmine 64, 6)

Subs Not Used: Hall, Blackstock

Goals: Routledge 22 (unassisted), Leigertwood 36 (assisted Routledge)

Referee: Kevin Wright (Cambridgeshire) 9 Not a referee I have a lot of time for normally but it is hard to think of a decision he got wrong in this match. Both bookings were justified and he did not interfere unduly with the play. Probably the best so far this season.

Cardiff 0 QPR 0, Saturday March 25, 2006

The first booking of the match came moments later and in truth only the honesty of Gareth Ainsworth prevented Loovens taking an early bath. At Loftus Road in December Loovens had been simply terrible, hacking around wildly and showing no footballing ability whatsoever. Here he was beaten to a ball on halfway by Ainsworth but continued to execute an ugly flying tackle on the Rangers man which sent Ainsworth flying. It was as bad a challenge as you could hope to see but Ainsworth bounced straight back up and perhaps this reaction saved Loovens from the red he deserved.

Cardiff Alexander 8, Barker 7, Purse 8, Loovens 4, Scimeca 5, Ardley 6,Koumas 7, Ledley 6, Cooper 6 (Weston 77, -), Thompson 7, Jerome 6.

Subs Not Used: Cox, Boland, Ndumbu-Nsungu, Worgan.

Booked: Loovens.

QPR Jones 7, Bignot 6, Milanese 6, Evatt 8, Shittu 8, Bircham 7,Ainsworth 7, Cook 6, Lomas 7, Youssouf 5(Furlong 72, 6),Nygaard 4 (Langley 89, -).

Subs Not Used: Royce, Santos, Baidoo.

Att: 14,271

Ref: K Wright (Cambridgeshire) 7 - Not too bad at all surprisingly. He kept the cards in his pocket although he could quite easily have sent Loovens off for his wild hack on Ainsworth. Allowed the game to flow as much as possible and all in all did a steady job. Most unlike him.

Crewe 3 QPR 4, Saturday December 31, 2005

Lee Cook too was turning in an unusually lung busting, hard working display and should have been rewarded with a penalty eighteen minutes into the game. Cook combined well with Rose down the left and chipped a delicate pass in behind Moss for Rose to run onto. The Rangers left back controlled the bouncing ball well with his first touch and then attempted to widen the angle with his second only to have the retreating Moss whip it off his boot with his right hand.

A more blatant penalty you'd struggle to find but referee Kevin Wright, who tortured Rangers fans on Boxing Day two years ago at Notts County, typically turned a blind eye to the offence. This was just one of numerous head bangingly obvious handballs by both sides missed by Wright on the day and if I worked for the DVLA I'd seriously consider revoking that guys license - how he manages to stop at something as concealed and sly as say, a red traffic light with such piss poor eyesight I don't know.

Blatant penalty or not it was disappointing to see Cook argue the toss with Wright for the next four minutes, following the hapless whistle blower right down to the other end of the pitch and back again instead of just getting on with the game.

Again scoring a goal seemed to scare Rangers. They retreated back into their shell and were lucky to get away with two near misses just past the hour mark. First Steve Jones batted the ball away from Shittu with his hand and sent a shot a fraction wide of the post. Incredibly our representative from Sightsavers International Mr Wright ignored the offence and signalled a goal kick. Had Jones curled it a fraction more Crewe would have been in front, the goal would have been allowed and Cheshire Police could have had a riot on their hands. Wright was chased across the pitch by Bignot, Shittu and others but offered only a gormless smirk as response.

Still Rangers had only beaten him four times and Crewe almost snatched a point at the death. Gareth Ainsworth brilliantly won a header against Lunt wide on the Rangers right but for some reason found himself pulled up by Wright. Lunt's lethal free kick almost found its way into the net off the head of Shittu but Royce was in the right place at the right time to claim and the R's somehow managed to make it through three minutes of added time to secure victory.

Crewe: Turnbull 4, Tonkin 4 (Rodgers 69 7), McCready 4, Foster 4, Moss 3, Vaughan 7, Billy Jones 7, Lunt 7, Gary Roberts 8, Johnson 8 (Varney 37 8), Steve Jones 9.

Subs Not Used: Tomlinson, Rix, Walker.

Booked: Billy Jones.

Goals: Johnson 15, Varney 39, Billy Jones 45.

QPR: Royce 6, Rose 2, Santos 2 (Milanese 69 6), Shittu 6, Bignot 5, Cook 7, Rowlands 8, Bircham 6 (Ainsworth 21, 6), Langley 8, Nygaard 7 (Furlong 69, 7), Baidoo 7.

Subs Not Used: Moore, Donnelly.

Goals: Cook 35, Baidoo 37, Rowlands 57, Langley 81.

Att: 5,687

Ref: K Wright (Cambridgeshire) 4 - This guy always has been and sadly always will be a total cretin. He wouldn't notice three diesel engines pulling fifty wagons blasting Cliff Richard hits from the cab until it had run him over. He was up to his usual home orientated, incompetent standard today.

Derby 1 QPR 2, Saturday October 29, 2005

Since arriving from Coventry John, a former Forest player, has received some horrendous stick from the Derby fans but he looked the most likely to get them off to a good start. After three minutes disorganisation in the Rangers' defence allowed John all the time he needed to shoot for goal but Royce produced a superb low save to his right to turn the ball behind for a corner. From the set piece Inigo Idiakez whipped a tremendous corner in from the Derby right and with confusion again rife in the Rangers' rear guard Simon Royce ended up punching the ball into his own net.

Fortunately for the visitors referee Kevin Wright had already blown for a foul on the keeper by Peschisolido and the deadlock remained.

Other than that the only real talking points in the opening stages were a series of bizarre decisions from referee Kevin Wright. Emerson Thome was getting away with murder every time the ball went near Furlong including one incident where the big Brazilian crawled over the back of the Rangers' striker, hauled Furs to the ground and was then awarded a free kick himself!

Things turned sour for QPR very quickly though. Paul Furlong, who really is old enough to know better, responded to some more rough house defending from Thome by lashing out at the Derby man as he ran past. Thome naturally hit the deck as if he'd been stabbed with a thousand knives and Mr Wright had little choice but to send Furlong from the field.

The pressure was relentless and yet it was QPR who created the best chance of the half. With Kenna gone and Derby searching for a goal they left themselves hopelessly short at the back and when Georges Santos found Kevin Gallen on the counter attack the home side were deep in the brown stuff. Gallen sent Stefan Moore racing in on goal but the young striker never looked confident and after taking two touches into the penalty area he steadied himself and fired the ball straight at Poole. It was a glaring miss and one the highlights Moore's lack of confidence at the moment.

Watching Derby go down the other end and win a penalty can't have done much for the lad either. With nineteen minutes remaining it was again Blackstock causing the problems, turning Dyer in the penalty area and then flicking the ball over the loan full back's head. For reasons known only to himself Dyer thrust out and arm and blocked the ball, a clear penalty. Idiakez placed the ball on the spot and the home fans finally thought their moment had arrived.

Not so. Just before the kick was taken Marcus Bignot rushed out of the pack on the edge of the box and frantically pointed for Royce to go to his right. It was good advice and after Idiakez's jinking, stop start, highly illegal run up Royce palmed a poor penalty kick away with both hands.

The natives were now more restless than ever and Rangers' produced a real ground emptier with eleven minutes to go. Georges Santos broke out of his own half with the ball at his feet and options both sides. Santos chose correctly, going left to Kevin Gallen, and played the pass superbly, Kevin strode onto the ball and majestically glided it past Poole and in off the base of the post. A better finish you're never likely to see.

Derby: Poole 6, Kenna 4 (Thirlwell 58, 5), Michael Johnson 5, Thome 7, Johnnie Jackson 6, Bisgaard 4, Idiakez 5, Seth Johnson 7, Whittingham 5, John 7 (Blackstock 59, 7), Peschisolido 5 (Tudgay 81, 6)

Subs Not Used: Camp, Doyle.

Booked: Peschisolido.

Goal: Blackstock 84.

QPR: Royce 9, Bignot 8, Shittu 8, Evatt 8, Dyer 8, Ainsworth 8 (Milanese 90, -), Doherty 8 (Langley 81, 7), Santos 7, Gallen 9, Furlong 4, Sturridge 5 (Moore 62, 5).

Subs Not Used: Shimmin, Donnelly.

Sent Off: Furlong (34).

Goals: Ainsworth 30, Gallen 80.

Ref: K Wright (Cambridgeshire) 4 - No arguments about the penalty decision, or the sending off, but a series of perplexing decisions riled both players and fans on the QPR side. Countless times he waved fouls on Gallen, Sturridge and Moore away claiming they'd dived but at the other end he couldn't the whistle in his mouth quick enough when Peschisolido, Idiakez or Bisgaard crashed to earth - which they did regularly. When a team goes down to ten men defending a lead you'd expect them to concede more free kicks but a final total of 23 free kicks to 8 in Derby's favour is taking things a little bit far, especially with the amount of Rangers free kicks he ignored. Also allowed Emerson Thome to batter Furlong for half an hour with both boots and elbows before the Rangers man foolishly took the bait.

Prior to all of that he was in charge at Loftus Road for Rangers’ 2-1 win against Nottingham Forest at the end of the 2004/05 season, sending off Forest’s Darryl Powell in the first half. That result condemned Forest to relegation. The season before, 2003/04, in the division below he booked three as QPR drew 1-1 at home to Tranmere on their way to promotion.

Stats

Wright came into that game at Barnsley in formidable form with six red cards in ten matches but he finished the season with low averages. Those were his only six red cards of the season and he only showed 63 yellows in 23 games — 2.739 a game.

Last season he showed five reds and 99 yellows in 33 appointments. That included four yellow cards in Huddersfield’s 2-1 home defeat by Middlesbrough where he awarded the visitors an injury time penalty to win the game. Seven yellows at Sheff Wed v Cardiff was by far and away his biggest haul in a single game.

So far this season he’s shown six yellows and a red in two matches — Burton v Scunthorpe and Sheff Utd v Chesterfield both in League One.