Andre Marriner is the referee entrusted with keeping a lid on this Sunday's West London derby between Fulham and QPR.
Referee >>> Andre Marriner (West Midlands), highly rated Premiership official who hasn’t refereed QPR for four years.
Assistants >>> Dave Bryan (Lincolnshire) and William Smallwood (Cheshire)
Fourth Official >>> Lee Probert (Gloucestershire), fourth official at QPR match for the second week running.
QPR 0 Plymouth 2, Tuesday September 18, 2007
The first action of the game came in the fourth minute when Damion Stewart was adjudged to have fouled Hayles and Plymouth were awarded a free kick 25 yards out from goal. Peter Halmosi stepped up to take it and beat the wall and Camp all ends up but the ball flew wide of the post. From where I was sitting it looked in all the way so that was a lucky escape.
In between these two chances Cullip stayed deep and played everybody onside allowing a cross from Ebanks Blake to flash right across the six yard box in front of the QPR goal with nobody able to get a killer touch. Buzsaky was off target with two more tempting free kicks before half time as Barry Hayles continued to hit the deck with embarrassing ease for such a strong man. The first was narrowly wide of Lee Camp's goal, the second flew high into the Upper Loft.
Martin Rowlands was unlucky not to draw the R's level ten minutes into the second half. Rangers' most impressive player on the night Danny Nardiello was cynically hauled back by Seip after tricking his way through and from the free kick Rowlands bent a lovely shot over the wall, past the beaten McCormick and off the angle of post and cross bar.
QPR: Camp 6, Rehman 5 (Bignot 59, 4), Cullip 6, Stewart 5, Barker 4, Rowlands 5, Nardiello 7 (Sahar 81, 6), Bolder 4, Leigertwood 4, Moore 4 (Ephraim 59, 6), Blackstock 5.
Subs Not Used: Cole, Curtis.
Plymouth: McCormick 7, Connolly 7, Seip 6, Timar 7, Sawyer 7, Norris 8, Buzsaky 8, Nalis 7, Halmosi 8, Hayles 8 (Hodges 90, -), Ebanks-Blake 7
Subs Not Used: Larrieu, Chadwick, Doumbe, Fallon
Booked: Seip (foul), Timar (foul)
Goals: Halmosi 50, Norris 62.
Referee: Andre Marriner (W Midlands) 5 - Seemed to give every fifty fifty decision Plymouth's way and bought every dive Barry Hayles offered to sell him but overall fairly standard Championship refereeing and in no way can we blame or offer him as an excuse for another woeful home performance and defeat.
Blackburn 3 QPR 0, Saturday January 7, 2006
On the hour mark a crude foul by Matteo on Baidoo gave Rangers a free kick twenty five yards from goal. Baidoo had been baring down on the penalty area with support to his left from Cook and just two Rovers defenders in front of him. Matteo's cynical hack at the youngster was a blatant yellow card, but Mr Marriner, wary of his lack of Premiership matches so far this season no doubt, patted his mate Dom on the bum and let him off with it. Shittu fired the resulting set piece off target.
Mauro Milanese picked up the first card of the game a short time later for a foul on Thompson. With Matteo and Peter repeatedly committing fouls that ranged from niggly to dangerous through the second half it was irritating to find a QPR player entering the book first but nothing more than you'd expect of Mr Marriner.
Ainsworth's next action of the game finally, finally brought a yellow card for Matteo. After numerous offences and two crude assaults on QPR players a mistimed sliding tackle on Ainsworth finally had Mr Marriner reaching for a card.
Blackburn: Friedel 7, Neill 8, Khivanishvili 7, Todd 8, Matteo 6, Thompson 7, Tugay 8, Savage 7 (Pedersen 77, 7), Peter 9, Bellamy 9*, Dickov 7 (Kuqi 77, 6).
Subs not used: Enckelman, Nelson, Emerton.
Scorers: Todd 17, Bellamy 36, Bellamy 86
Bookings: Matteo 70, Neill 87
QPR: Royce 6, Bignot 5, Shittu 6, Rose 7, Milanese 6, Rowlands 7, Langley 6, Santos 5 (Ainsworth 55, 8), Cook 5 (Donnelly 75, 7), Baidoo 6, Furlong 6 (Moore 75).
Subs: Cole, Evatt.
Bookings: Milanese 67
Referee - Andre Marriner - 4 - A referee on the "elite" list with only 1 Premier division match to his name doesn't want any controversy against high profile Premiership personalities like Bellamy and Mark Hughes damaging his future prospects - so most of the 50/50 calls went Rovers way he only booked Matteo when he absolutely had to after numerous fouls. You only have to look at similar performances this weekend from Peter Walton at Fulham and Howard Webb at Burton Albion to realise that more often than not, these weak individuals realise what side their bread is buttered on and let the off dodgy decision slip through when it suits.
Stoke 1 QPR 2, Saturday December 3, 2005
It's often been said that the 2005/06 season at Loftus Road will make a great film one day, some of the scenes at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday wouldn't have looked out of place in Black Hawk Down. Some questionable refereeing decisions and spoiling tactics from QPR riled the fifteen thousand home fans so much the atmosphere became more poisonous than anywhere I've travelled with QPR since the last time we played in Stoke.
Nevertheless the players threw off the shackles of another difficult week at Loftus Road to take the lead inside two minutes. Carl Hoefkens was harshly adjudged to have felled Paul Furlong twenty five yards out from goal by everybody's favourite perma tanned referee Andre (with an acute accent) Marriner.
With the ball slightly right of centre it seemed ideally placed for one of Paul Furlong's trademark left foot master blasters. Richard Langley rolled the ball to Shittu instead and he hit an embarrassing low drive straight at Gareth Ainsworth on the edge of the box. Ainsworth got the ball caught under his feet but still managed to scramble it into the penalty area where Paul Furlong was waiting to pounce and force home the opening goal.
Right on half time QPR forced a rare corner, but only succeeded in picking up a booking from the resulting set piece. Gareth Ainsworth tussled with Halls at the back post and seemed to raise an arm to the Stoke man, luckily after consulting his linesman referee Marriner produced only a yellow card for the QPR player.
The turning point in the game came just seven minutes into the second half. Against the run of play Rangers launched a counter attack. Martin Rowlands hit a low shot from the edge of the box that Simonsen parried down into the ground rather than away from his goal. This allowed Paul Furlong to nip in for what would have been a simple tap in, had Halls not wrapped both arms round the striker and dragged him to the ground.
You're never likely to see a more blatant penalty but Halls complained long and hard about the decision, and had to be dragged away from the referee by Luke Chadwick once the red card had been produced. Halls had to endure a humiliating walk to the tunnel right in front of those QPR fans he had mocked after the equaliser.
After a lengthy delay and a heated argument with Gareth Ainsworth Richard Langley stepped up to take the penalty. His dead straight six step run up was exactly the same one he used the last time he took a penalty for QPR. That was against Luton in an FA Cup replay at Loftus Road and he missed, this time though he calmly waited for Simonsen to guess the wrong way, and then tucked the ball in to the keeper's left.
The frustration was too much for Brammer who executed crude tackles on Marcus Bignot and then Richard Langley without punishment from Marriner. Brammer had been booked in the first half and, probably fearing for his safety at full time, Andre with an acute accent clearly didn't have the gumption to dismiss a second home player.
As the final whistle sounded two Stoke fans ran onto the pitch at the Boothen end of the ground. One wrestled Simon Royce into the back of the net and the pair grappled with each other until Luke Chadwick arrived to assist the Rangers keeper. Shabazz Baidoo and Ian Evatt both made it to the scene of the incident before a steward even entered the picture. When a couple of fat sods in yellow coats did arrive it was no surprise to see the Gold Range logo on their backs - as QPR know from personal experience they're a real standard bearer for crass incompetence in the stewarding of football matches.
Stoke: Simonsen 6, Broomes 7, Duberry 5, Hoefkens 6, Halls 5, Sweeney 8(Sigurdsson 76, 7), Brammer 7, Henry 6, Chadwick 8, Bangoura 8, Sidibe 7.
Subs Not Used: de Goey, Kolar, Buxton, Junior.
Sent Off: Halls (51), professional foul.
Booked: Brammer, Sigurdsson.
Goals: Bangoura 26.
QPR: Royce 8, Bignot 7, Shittu 7, Milanese 8, Dyer 5 (Evatt 59, 6), Bean 6, Langley 6, Rowlands 7, Ainsworth 7 (Cook 88, -), Moore 5 (Baidoo 90, -), Furlong 7.
Subs Not Used: Cole, Donnelly.
Booked: Milanese, Ainsworth, Bean, Rowlands.
Goals: Furlong 2, Langley 52 pen.
Ref: A Marriner (W Midlands) - 5 - Had very little choice with the penalty and subsequent sending off but apart from this he made inconsistent decisions and got caught up in the atmosphere a little. Once he'd sent Halls off, correctly, he really turned against Rangers and tried to even things up. The free kick for Rangers first goal was a poor decision, as was the award in favour of Chadwick for the second. Marcus Bean was rightly booked for a late tackle, but Brammer was allowed to get away with two, because he'd already been booked - coward. At the end of the day the guy is a poor referee.
Prior to all of that he refereed a 1-0 defeat at Cardiff at the very end of the 2004/05 season, and earlier in that campaign a 3-2 home win against Plymouth that saved Ian Holloway’s job amidst the Ramon Diaz farce. He also refereed a 4-1 home win against Hartlepool in our 2003/04 promotion season.
His last two Fulham matches were both in October last year – a 1-1 draw at West Ham with four bookings and a 2-0 home win against Wigan with none.
Premiership >>> It’s Old Trafford for Stuart Attwell as Man Utd face Norwich, Mike Dean has been trusted with the North London derby, Martin Atkinson has the Merseyside derby.
Championship >>> Despite being in St Petersburg in European action this week Howard Webb is straight back into the action with the Leicester v Derby Midlands derby clash in the Championship.
League Two >>> Premiership referee Neil Swarbrick has Bristol Rovers v Cheltenham, our old mate Gavin Ward has the Friday nighter between Southend and Shrewsbury.