Hooper in charge of Huddersfield trip - Referee
Thursday, 15th Sep 2016 12:23 by Clive Whittingham

Occasional Premier League referee Simon Hooper is the man in the middle on Saturday as QPR go to surprise early league leaders Huddersfield.

Referee >>> Simon Hooper (Wiltshire), refereed two televised QPR defeats last season against Brentford and Middlesbrough.

Assistants >>> Christopher Akers (South Yorkshire) and Nick Hopton (Derbyshire)

Fourth Official >>> Thomas Bramall

Previously

QPR 2 Middlesbrough 3, Friday April 1, 2016, Championship

The hosts took the initiative following conceding the opening goal, and after a period of semi-sustained pressure, were rewarded with a fine equaliser ten minutes later. Middlesbrough failed to deal with a Faurlin ball into the box, and it fell to Mackie, back to goal on the edge of the box, who instinctively swivelled and thumped it goalwards with his left foot. The ball crashed down off the bar, and clearly over the line before bouncing back out again. Luckily the far side linesman had kept up with play enough to confirm to the referee, and the goal was eventually given.

QPR were showing signs of getting back into the game when the main talking point happened. Chery had previously flashed wide a volley from a lovely Polter knockdown, but on 70 minutes a lofted ball down the right from Henry was chased down, and right on the byline Hoilett centred the ball for Polter to tap in for a birthday goal from six yards. The referee had already blown for a goal kick before Polter had finished, but this was on instruction from a linesman that was nowhere near the play, and absolutely could not have seen that it was over the line and out, which it absolutely wasn’t. A goal incorrectly chalked off, and Hoilett ended up disappearing into the camera pit for his troubles.

QPR: Smithies 7; Onuoha 5, Angella 5, Hall 5, Perch 7; Faurlin 5 (Washington 79 6), Henry 7; Phillips 5 (Hoilett 62, 6), Chery 7, Mackie 7 (El Khayati 69 6); Polter 6

Subs not used: Ingram, Luongo, Petrasso, Robinson

Goals: Mackie 31 (Unassisted), Chery 86 (assisted Polter)

Bookings: Perch 77 (foul)

Middlesbrough: Konstantopoulos 6; Nsue 7, Kalas 6, Gibson 6, Friend 7; Clayton 7, Leadbitter 7, Adomah 8, Ramirez 7 (Forshaw 67, 6), Downing 6 (Ayala 84, 6); Rhodes 6 (Nugent 78, 6)

Subs not used: de Laet, De Pena, de Sart, Agazzi

Goals: Rhodes 18 (Assisted Leadbitter), Ramirez 51 (Assisted Leadbitter), Gibson 57 (Assisted Leadbitter)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 7 Got the penalty decision right, but was let down by the linesman for the Polter ‘goal’. Kept his cards in his pocket, let the game flow and was largely anonymous throughout, which is what you want from a referee in general.

Brentford 1 QPR 0, Friday October 30, 2015, Championship

Hill, and particularly Hall, had a superb first half together here. QPR defended deep and narrow, funneling play in towards their centre halves who lapped the challenge up. No confrontation too physical, no header too high, no tackle missed. Hill lasted only 20 minutes before he was yellow carded after a set to with Alan McCormack — referee Simon Hooper could easily have left it with a word on the run for both players but it showed a bit of backbone and needle that QPR have often been found lacking in these fixtures. Rangers weren’t coming here to roll over, they were coming to stand their ground, and stand it they did.

Brentford spent much of the second half time wasting. James Tarkowski checking the pressure of the ball before the goal kicks was something referee Simon Hooper probably should have done more than simply laugh along with, for instance. The lobotomised Uncle Fester look-a-like in the main stand holding onto the ball, baiting the QPR players and, shamelessly, delivering a volley of abuse into Clint Hill’s face as he was helped from the field in the second half injured should have been dealt with by the steward sitting directly in front of him. Hill seemed in a lot of pain, and it looked as though the physio was testing for knee ligament injuries — we await those results with bated breath.

Brentford: Button 6; Yennaris 6, Dean 7, Tarkowski 6, Bidwell 6; McCormack 6 (Vibe 82, -), Diagouraga 7; Woods 6, Swift 6, Judge 7 (Kerschbaumer 77, 6); Djuricin 7 (Hoffman 90, -)

Subs not used: Bonham, O’Connell, Gogia, Canos

Goals: Djuricin 56 (assisted Judge)

Bookings: McCormack 20 (ungentlemanly), Djuricin 86 (time wasting)

QPR: Green 6; Onuoha 5, Hall 7, Hill 6 (Perch 76, 6), Konchesky 5; Henry 6, Tozser 5; Phillips 5, Luongo 6 (Hoilett 67, 5), Chery 5 (Austin 63, 5), Emmanuel Thomas 4

Subs not used: Doughty, Faurlin, Smithies, Polter

Booked: Hill 20 (ungentlemanly), Tozser 24 (foul), Phillips 80 (foul)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshere) 7 Not a lot to referee, which says a lot for how meek QPR are on these derby occasions. Over the top to book Hill and McCormack for their early clash, and failed miserably to clamp down on the time wasting that went on in the second half from the home players and fans, but otherwise not bad at all.

QPR 2 Cardiff City 2, Saturday August 15, 2015, Championship

Cardiff’s reserve goalkeeper Simon Moore, in for the suspended David Marshall and fresh from an Ademole Bankole against Fulham on day one, did well to adjust his body in mid air and keep out Matt Phillips’ deflected drive. His reward was scant — from the resulting corner Clint Hill punched the ball towards goal with his fist and Charlie Austin nudged it over the line with his forearm. Hooper looked at the incident and awarded the goal.

Later Jones won a header at the back post from a deep cross and caused pandemonium in the QPR area only for a free kick to be awarded to the home side and the Cardiff fans high behind the School End goal had further cause to pick up the pitch forks and flaming torches when Rob Green came for a through ball which was never his and seemed to obviously handle it outside his area. Green patted his chest, but didn’t look like even he believed it. Remarkably, Hooper bought it and waved play on.

Having invited Cardiff to attack them the home team was punished with a smashing last minute equaliser, volleyed into the top corner from 25 yards out by Scott Malone. It was the second time the left sided defender had pulled his team level in the final seconds of a game at that end of the ground having done so for Millwall here two seasons ago.

QPR surrounded referee Simon Hooper and had very good cause to believe there had been a foul on Michael Doughty in the build-up. But they had only themselves to blame - not only had they lacked the brains to hold onto a two goal lead, but they’d missed a gilt edged chance to make it 3-1 second earlier when Emmanuel-Thomas somehow rolled a sitter wide after being played through by Polter.

QPR: Green 5; Perch 5, Onuoha 7, Hill 6, Konchesky 5; Luongo 7, Henry 5; Phillips 6, Chery 7 (Doughty 55, 6), Gladwin 5 (Emmanuel-Thomas 76, 5); Austin 6 (Polter 68, 6)

Subs not used: Hall, Kpekawa, Faurlin, Lumley

Goals: Hill 33 (assisted Phillips), Austin 56 (assisted Phillips/Hill)

Cardiff: Moore 7; Peltier 5, Connolly 5, Morrison 6, Malone 7; Pilkington 6 (Ameobi 82, -), Dikgacoi 5 (Noone 68, 6), Whittingham 6, Ralls 7; Mason 8, Revell 5 (Jones 59, 7)

Subs not used: Fabio, Doyle, Gunnarsson, Wilson

Goals: Morrison 64 (assisted Whittingham), Malone 90 (assisted Ralls)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 5 Three poor decisions in the game, two in favour of QPR. The second goal should have been disallowed for handball, Rob Green could have been sampling the early bath water for handling outside his area, and Rangers should have had a free kick in the build up to the Cardiff equaliser. Not a good start to the season for the Premier League’s newest referee who last weekend incorrectly disallowed a Cameron Jerome goal at Norwich v Palace.

QPR 1 Wigan 0, Tuesday March 25, 2014, Championship

But as the game wore on his frustration grew. Referee Simon Hooper, superb on his last visit here for the game against Huddersfield, followed a very decent first half display with a mad half hour in the second that turned Morrison from QPR’s chief attacking threat into a red card waiting to happen. First there was a nasty tackle from McClean on Carroll that should have brought a yellow card but didn’t, then there was an obvious foul on Morrison on the edge of the Wigan area that didn’t even bring a free kick. When Powell was then awarded a free kick when he’d appeared to dive under challenge from Barton, and then a promising looking counter attack from Benayoun was hauled all the way back for a QPR free kick they didn’t want, so McArthur could be booked, frustration was audible and Morrison let the situation get the better of him.

Several times he could be seen beating the turf in frustration, and he started diving trying to win free kicks that weren’t fouls. There was a set to with Josh McEachran, who he has played with in the England Under 21s, that required intervention and another incident where he appeared to kick out at a Wigan man while on the ground. Had the referee seen that he could well have been off, but then so could Ramis who lashed out at Benayoun while trying to retrieve the ball for a late free kick. In the end Hooper settled for a yellow card for the QPR man on that occasion which would have bad consequences later on. At full time Morrison appeared to run onto the field and have words with McEachran again.

Although Redknapp did eventually send on Henry and Suk-Young — and both made valuable contributions during their brief cameos — it still wasn’t enough to stem the tide or the onset of tiredness. Benayoun, who’d been excellent all night, committed one of those deliberate trips against an attacker at full pace in injury time to earn a second yellow and a red.

Morrison got his inevitable yellow for a robust foul on Gomez with four left to play.
The extra space afforded Maynard his injury time opportunity, but Green was equal to that and everything else the Latics threw at him and the Loft End sang the goalkeeper’s name when full time finally did arrive after a torturous four added minutes.

QPR: Green 8; Hughes 6, Onuoha 7, Dunne 6, Hill 6; Carroll 7, Barton 6; Kranjcar 5 (O’Neil 45, 6), Morrison 6, Benayoun 7; Zamora 6

Subs not used: Simpson, Keane, Hoilett, Murphy

Goals: Benayoun 16 (assisted Carroll/Hill)

Red Cards: Benayoun 90+1 (two bookings — one match ban)

Bookings: Benayoun 81 (kicking ball away), Morrison 86 (foul), Benayoun 90+1 (foul)

Wigan: Al-Habsi 6; Crainey 6 (Beausejour 61, 6), Ramis 7, Rogne 6 (Gomez 73, 6), Kiernan 6; Perch 6, McEachran 6 (Maynard 80, 5), McArthur 7, Collison 6; McClean 7, Powell 7

Subs not used: Carson, Caldwell, Fortune, Waghorn

Bookings: McArthur 71 (foul)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 6 A really excellent first half, as we’re coming to expect from this referee, gave way to an awkward second where he struggled to keep hold of things at times. Ravel Morrison’s behaviour in the second period was poor, but the frustration stemmed from not being awarded a couple of early free kicks for definite fouls — clearly the referee was sick of hearing the cry of wolf from a player who does go down too easily. I thought McClean should have been booked for his foul on Carroll, particularly when you see the incident with Benayoun’s second yellow. Overall not too bad, but a bit of a wild 20 minute spell in the second half.

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

Hooper was in eccentric form at Aston Villa v Forest at the weekend, booking nine and dismissing Hildeberto Pereira for over celebrating a goal he didn’t even score. He’d only shown 15 yellow cards in his first seven games of the season prior to that. No Premier League appointments yet this season, but he’s been trusted with Newcastle’s opening match and Sheff Wed v Leeds in the Championship so far.

Last season he showed 100 yellows and two reds in 41 games, with just the one Premier League appointment right at the start of the campaign between Norwich and Palace. The season before he showed 131 yellows and four reds in 40 games spread across the Football League and cup competitions. He showed six yellows and a red at Bradford v Sheff Utd in League One, his biggest single haul. His last Cardiff game was their 2-1 League Cup win at Coventry a year ago this week.

He hasn’t refereed Huddersfield since January 2014, when they lost 2-1 at… QPR. He was also in charge of their 2-0 loss at Hull that season.

Other Listings

League One >>> Neil Swarbrick drops down from the top flight for Sheff Utd v Peterborough. Trevor Kettle has Walsall v Bolton which should be a laugh.

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