In a week where Queens Park Rangers CEO Lee Hoos unashamedly pleaded with supporters to climb on board with his early season ticket renewal policy, perhaps Northamptonshire referee Andy Woolmer was sent as a gift from the marketing Gods. Even a midtable dead rubber can be turned into a nail-biting cliffhanger if you leave a maverick lunatic in charge of it.

But there had already been one or two warning signs that all was not well with the match officials. Five minutes into the game Calum Woods launched into the sort of cunt’s trick challenge on Ale Faurlin that ordinarily has people discussing whether a red card is appropriate. The Argentinean, knees held together with elastic bands and chewing gum, leapt up immediately to remonstrate with his opponent and the pair had to be separated. Woolmer showed no card at all, presumably under the unwritten “it’s a bit early yet” legislation.

Problem was, having not booked for that, it sort of skewed the rules for the rest of the game — if you can deliberately chop into somebody with a reckless tackle off the ground and not be booked, what exactly is a yellow card? Woolmer’s struggles escalated from there on in, and presumably ended later that night with him in the arms of his wife in tears while she stroked his balding pate and assured him it couldn’t possible have been as bad as he thought. It was. In fact, it was worse.

On half time the home team were, justifiably, incandescent when Gallagher turned round Hill into open space on halfway and was clearly bodychecked to the ground by the veteran QPR defender. On this occasion Woolmer didn’t even award a free kick, which brought him a lively reception from the home fans and coaching staff at half time.

That reception at the break seemed to be something of a straw for this piss weak official’s crumbling back. Trapped somewhere between appeasing the home fans, and showing them he didn’t care what they thought, he turned the second half into the sort of circus you imagine Gurnham Singh fantasises about in some suburban motorway hotel room with a length of rope round his neck and a citrus fruit in his mouth. This routine midtable dead rubber quickly turned into a game the likes of which I’ve rarely seen before in 25 years of week-in-week-out attendance at football matches. We were laughing by the end. Everybody was laughing.

We’ll ignore the first five minutes of the second half, in which five Preston free kicks were swiftly awarded to loud cheers from the home stands, two of them for almost nothing at all. We’ll mention only in passing now the moment Tjaronn Chery seized on a loose ball and streaked clear on goal only to be obviously and deliberately hauled to the ground by Tom Clarke who knew the game was up — only to say that Woolmer wasn’t even going to award a free kick at all until his linesman felt compelled to intervene and insist that a foul had been committed. The rules say a red card was the only option, and Clarke was therefore shown a yellow.

Sympathy for Chery, and anger over the injustice of it all, is tainted somewhat by the Dutchman later being allowed to race away one on one with Lindegaard but delaying his shot too long and allowing the keeper to make an easily readable save. QPR should have put the game to bed there and then regardless of the Krusty Comeback Special masquerading as a refereeing performance.

What I’d like to focus on instead is two separate incidents where Woolmer contrived to concoct a decision that simply isn’t in the laws of the game at all. First, as Junior Hoilett was preparing to take a QPR corner, Clint Hill made an early run to the near post and was, fairly obviously, tripped and then pulled to the ground by his marker. A penalty, had the ball been delivered, but it hadn’t. What usually happens in these situations is both players get up, the taking of the corner is delayed, the players are spoken to by the referee and the corner is re-run. What happened here was Woolmer signalled for Hoilett to take the corner immediately anyway with both players on the floor, and the very second his foot connected with the ball he immediately awarded a Preston free kick against Hill — now on the ground and buried under his assailant. A free kick awarded in the wrong direction for an offence that took place before the ball had come into play. A new one on me, and I’ve seen Darren Deadman referee.

This needle led to the second remarkable piece of officiating. When a Preston attack was defused by Alex Smithies - ever commanding, ever confident, looking great in mauve — Doyle objected to Angella’s attentions and a fight ensued. Not a proper fight like you see in Rugby League, a football fight where people push each other about a bit and clasp bits of their face hoping some blood has been drawn so a red card might be shown.

Woolmer, panicked, rushed across to disrupt the melee and separate the players but with the ball in Smithies’ hands and therefore still in play he was now in something of a predicament. He’d stopped the game — though not by blowing the whistle — and now needed to know how to restart the thing. If he believed Angella was in the wrong, it was a penalty kick. If he thought Doyle had sinned, then it was a QPR free kick. If he thought it was neither of those things, then it was a drop ball straight back to Smithies. What it definitely wasn’t, and couldn’t ever be, was play on from the goalkeeper’s hands — something the referee only realised himself long after the keeper had bowled the ball out to James Perch at left back, resulting in another long, random, perplexing stoppage. I think, in the end, he settled on a QPR free kick on the edge of the area. To be honest, it was hard to tell by this stage. Episodes of It’s A Knockout held their structure better than this total nonsense.

By the time Woolmer’s random decision generator produced six minutes of added time from the bag the whole thing had basically become football’s version of Billy Smart’s Travelling Circus. Disagreements, fights, set tos and what nots were breaking out all over the field as play continued in different areas of the pitch. Play was stopped for nothing at all, and allowed to go on through obvious fouls. At one point, after Angella and Beckford were booked for a push and shove match, Woolmer then ran half the length of the field to show a yellow card to - I think — Ale Faurlin, who’d been nowhere near anything at all and could only place his hands on his knees and bow his heads in absolute exasperation at the ludicrousness of it all. Henry came across and put an arm around his shoulders in solidarity — both ended up laughing. Somewhere in his lair in southern England, Rob Styles watched on with a mixture of pride and sexual arousal. This was turning into a masterpiece of incompetence even Trevor Kettle would struggle to recreate.

By now both sets of fans were raining abuse down on the field in equal measure, astonished by what they were seeing. I couldn’t help but think both teams would have been better served by removing the referee altogether and replacing him with a bucket filled with strips of paper saying things like “Preston penalty” or “QPR throw in” and simply have the captains draw them out tombola-style every time the ball went dead. It couldn’t have been any more ridiculous, and more correct decisions would have been reached.

Preston scored early-ish in that stoppage time, as they probably deserved to, when Luongo got a bit lazy wide right, and Karl Henry - decent to this point — was caught flat-footed by Cunningham who subsequently had space to cross for Doyle to head in at the near post. Annoying, QPR had worked hard enough for better.

In the end Woolmer played almost nine extra minutes, during which there were four bookings — I think, he was basically walking around with the yellow permanently in his hand by this stage flashing it about all over the show — and three separate fights. Anders Lindegaard, ridiculously, leapt into the air and objected to a challenge from Grant Hall which resulted in another dispute and a yellow card for the QPR man. One you realise the referee has lost control, you’ll try all sorts on - like a class of going-nowhere kids in a down-at-heel northern secondary school presented with a meek supply teacher.

Edwards headed one good cross over after 55 minutes, then van La Parra saw a shot blocked in the area, seemingly by Grant Hall’s arm for a decent penalty appeal, after James Perch had inexplicably sent a nervous header back into the danger zone. Things calmed for a little while after that but QPR’s first change — bringing on Tjaronn Chery for Henry and moving Leroy Fer back into a more defensive midfield position — opened them up even more through the middle of the park and suddenly it looked like Wolves were playing with 13 men on the field.

First, Joey Barton, in typical style, aerially flew through Harry Arter, who is Scott Parker’s brother-in-law out of interest, with his elbows high but won the ball. Foul, probably. Arter wasn’t best pleased though and Barton’s chirpiness in his ear brought about a clear stamp down the shins on Barton from the Bournemouth man. Woolmer must have been eyeing up the pies in the South Africa Road stand as he missed the act of clear violence (OK, maybe a little strong) despite being six feet away. The home crowd called for a red card. Woolmer gave Arter a stern telling off. Things were about to get worse. Strap yourselves in, comrades.

Perhaps Redknapp and QPR fans should thank Arter and Woolmer though because thanks to one’s petulance and the other’s incompetence, Loftus Road was now rocking under the lights. The Super Hoops responded too and upped their intensity.
Rangers sensed blood and went to kill the game off, something they have rarely done this campaign, with Kevin Bond and Joe Jordan barking out encouragement from the sidelines to press high. The game should have been over as a contest on 32 minutes and only Woolmer and his assistant referee will be able to explain why. Not that they will of course.

Enthusiastically chasing a through ball, Austin looked favourite to burst through last-man Tommy Elphick, who had a tug on his shirt before scooping the ball back with his hand when hitting the deck. Crystal clear to everyone in the stadium. Clear as mud to the linesman and referee. Elphick was the last man. Deliberate hand ball. Sending off. Simple.

After a good two minutes of deliberation between the ref and his lino, they decided that the free-kick was justice enough for the most obvious professional foul you’ll see all season. Even the Bournemouth players were laughing at the farcical goings on.