Mark Haywood is back in charge of a QPR game for the first time in nearly five years this Saturday as the R’s head to Bristol City.
Referee >>> Mark Haywood (West Yorkshire), four previous QPR appointments but none since the 2010/11 promotion season.
Assistants >>> William Bull (Hampshire) and Andrew Quin (Devon)
Fourth Official >>> Tim Wood (Gloucestershire)
The visiting team’s tactic, if it can be decreed as such, to deal with Taarabt and Routledge was to hit both players with rough sliding tackles the very second either of them received the ball. This seemed to intimidate Taarabt rather, who occupied a variety of different positions right across the attacking line throughout the game looking for space to have an affect, and brought the first booking of the game 20 minutes in when Doyle deliberately upended Routledge in full flight on halfway. This was one of the few decisions referee Mark Haywood managed to complete promptly and correctly in what started off as an eccentric display of officiating but had me tearing what remains of my hair out by the end of the game.
The free kick was worked wide to the left for Smith to send in a cross that Helguson met well with a header that was blocked in the six yard box — vocal appeals for a handball were waved away by the referee. Reprieved but still under pressure Coventry were indebted to Westwood who flung himself acrobatically into the air to turn Shaun Derry’s beautifully struck half volley over the bar with one hand. The subsequent corner was again only half cleared and Derry’s midfield partner Faurlin tried his luck with a similar effort but couldn’t keep the shot on target.
Referee Mr Haywood had, to this point, controlled the game in what I would call an eccentric manner. He bumbled around the field missing obvious decisions, repeatedly guessing with throw ins, and often relying on his linesman to give fouls that had taken place right in front of him. A farce erupted before half time when a Coventry player hit the ground with a head injury and City kicked the ball out of play for a throw in. What should have happened then was a QPR player throw the ball in and another Ranger return it down the field to Westwood. Bizarrely he let Coventry take the throw in that they had kicked out and then ordered the ball to go back to Kenny. When Coventry vehemently protested at this arrangement he simply shrugged and waddled off down the field. It was almost like a Sunday league game where the referee fails to turn up so one of the dads has to do it.
The farce deepened seven minutes before half time when Shaun Derry was booked for what looked to me like the best tackle of the match — hard, but perfectly fair and executed with just the one foot placed cleanly on the ball. Rangers were then awarded a rare free kick of their own to ironic cheers from the home support but Taarabt’s awesome delivery into the six yard box caught his team mates flat footed. In the next attack he ignored them and went himself, drilling a fraction wide of the post from distance with Westwood panicking.
That was merely an interlude to Derry act two. Five minutes after he’d been booked the former Palace man, magnificent at the heart of the QPR midfield to this point, went up for a header with Michael Doyle and won the ball cleanly. Doyle hit the ground clutching his head and Haywood immediately stopped the play. There then formed a procession of Coventry City players past and present from miles around massing at the feet of the referee — coach trips started to arrive, City legends long since retired flew in from foreign climes, and soon there were hundreds of them crowding round Mr Heywood en mass like Muslims heading to Mecca making huge exaggerated gestures with their arms to say that Derry had in fact attacked their team mate with his elbow and should therefore be sent off. It was a shameful display of gamesmanship. One Eastern European player flashing an imaginary yellow card at a referee after being tripped by an opponent is bad enough but a whole plethora of players crowding an official demanding that an opponent be dismissed is a disgrace. And it got worse.
When it became clear that Derry was not going to be sent off Doyle, who you’d have been forgiven for thinking may have been suffering from a fractured skull and brain bleed such was the reaction of his team mates and indeed him on the ground, made the most miraculous recovery since Jesus met two blind geezers in Galilee. Up to his feet he leapt, without even any need for treatment from a physio — which wasn’t half bad for a man who just moments earlier had been calling for a priest to come and read him his rights. To go with this literally disgusting act of gamesmanship Coventry, who had been out of possession and defending at the time of the incident, kindly returned the ball to QPR by way of hacking it out for a throw in deep in the Rangers half. And just to rub salt in the wounds Aidy Boothroyd just stood on the touchline and waved for his players to press forward and pen QPR in. Sportsmanship? The horrible little prick probably couldn’t even spell it.
Here comes that word justice again. QPR, newly fired up by the incident, went on to equalise and then go very close to taking the lead in the three minutes of stoppage time that was only added because of Doyle’s cheating and Westwood’s time wasting. Sometimes, sometimes, life is very sweet indeed.
Three minutes were added, and in the first of those Adel Taarabt pulled a Paddy Kenny free kick out of the air with one touch, tied McSheffrey and the leaden footed Richard Keogh in complete knots with a step over and drop of the shoulder and then lifted the ball calmly over Westwood and into the net. No doubt the Coventry players expected him to cut inside and do what he did but sometimes he’ just too good to stop.
Westwood watched on the big screen to see how he’d done it and walked away shaking his head — the point that both teams would have been in the sheds with Coventry in front had he played the game in the spirit it was intended probably didn’t occur to him.
At the other end more crazy refereeing started the second half as the first had ended. Heidar Helguson was first grabbed, then pulled and finally wrestled to the floor by Richard Wood in perhaps the most blatant foul we will see all season. Referee Haywood, all of five yards away, gave nothing only to then allow himself to be overruled by a linesman standing 30 yards away. Shambolic. Nevertheless it would all have been forgotten had Alejandro Faurlin scored with the free kick — instead he curled a beautiful left footed shot around the wall, past Westwood, against the inside of the post, all the way along the goal line and then agonisingly out for a goal kick on the other side. He could scarcely have come closer to scoring.
QPR: Kenny 7, Orr 7, Connolly 6, Gorkss 6, Hill 7, Derry 8, Faurlin 7, Routledge 8 (Ephraim 90, -), Taarabt 8, Smith 7(Hall 83, -), Helguson 6 (Miller 55, 7)
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Clarke, Hulse, Moen
Booked: Derry (foul)
Goals: Taarabt 45 (assisted Kenny), Routledge 79 (assisted Taarabt)
Coventry: Westwood 8, Keogh 5, Wood 6, Cranie 6, O'Halloran 6, Gunnarsson 6, Doyle 5 (Clingan 67, 6), Baker 6, McSheffrey 6 (Platt 79, 5),King 8, Eastwood 7 (Jutkiewicz 46, 6)
Subs Not Used: Ireland, Bell, Clarke, Cameron
Booked: Doyle (foul), O'Halloran (foul)
Goals: King 25 (assisted McSheffrey)
Referee: Mark Haywood (W Yorkshire) 5 No big decisions to get wrong, so the mark cannot be too low, but a truly eccentric performance that looked like that of a man annoyed at being made to work on a Sunday and hungover from a big Saturday out cannot attract any more than a five. Apart from the guess work involved in so many decisions, the obvious fouls and handballs he missed on a constant basis and occasionally had to have given for him by linesmen, he spent the final ten minutes of the game giving Coventry a succession of free kicks for laughable dives by their defenders under no contact whatsoever. He finished by giving them a last chance to salvage a draw from a corner that was an obvious goal kick.
Derby 2 QPR 2, Saturday August 28, 2010
Derby made it 2-0 on the hour mark. A soft free kick given against Matt Connolly for a supposed foul on Paul Green, one of several very strange refereeing decisions in the second half, was taken quickly by Robbie Savage and although Rangers, through Faurlin, twice had the chance to win the ball back and clear it Derby’s hard work and quick pressing of the QPR man in possession kept it alive around the penalty box. The ball was run into the area by Cywka who teed it up for James Bailey and the youngster scored his first goal for Derby with a nice, low, curling shot around Kenny from the edge of the area after a crafty drop of the shoulder to fool the advancing defenders. Kenny’s pre-emptive step to his right justg before the shot was hit to his left proved crucial.
It seemed as though QPR were just going to meekly surrender their unbeaten record. Derby were quicker to every loose ball, enthusiastic when out of position, threatening with the ball and full of running and hard work. QPR looked off the pace and lethargic. To compound matters for 20 minutes in the second half referee Mark Haywood had one of the brain explosions that have come to typify his refereeing performances with QPR in the past. There was a goal kick awarded after Bywater clearly punched the ball out, several strange free kicks and finally a blatant QPR throw in given to Derby which sent Neil Warnock into a towering rage on the touchline and forced the match official to come and threaten him with a spell in the cheap seats if he continued. As a referee though he does just seem to lose the plot for long spells of games.
Frustration with the officials, and life in general, grew 15 minutes from time when Barker and Brayford clashed under a high ball in the Derby area after failing to communicate with each other. Barker fell heavily as the ball fell to Ephraim in the area. Haywood stopped the play immediately and called for treatment for Barker who was, wouldn’t you just know it, absolutely fine. Was it a head injury? I fail to see how Haywood could tell having blown his whistle and stopped play within half a second of Barker hitting the deck. It was a pathetic piece of refereeing really, and the frustration with it only grew when Robbie Savage absolutely needlessly stood by and applauded the referee while the treatment was metered out. This is the sort of thing that winds people up with Savage — he had an excellent game, keeping Taarabt very quiet and making the Derby team tick, why ruin that by winding opposition players and fans up in this way? You just know that had the play been stopped for an injury while Derby were on the attack he would have been right in the referee’s face.
That brought the four minutes of advertised stoppage time to an end but sticking with his bizarre behaviour in the second half referee Mark Haywood continued to allow play to go on. QPR launched a final attack with a long ball forward from Kenny. Leacock climbed all over the back of Agyemang but could only flick the ball into the path of Mackie on the edge of the area. The in form striker controlled the ball, turned Gary Roberts inside out, and then fired a wonderful finish past Bywater and into the net before removing his shirt and engaging in jubilant celebrations in front of the travelling QPR faithful. The shirt removal cost him a yellow card, I doubt he cared.
Derby: Bywater 6, Brayford 6, Leacock 6, Barker 5, Roberts 6, Doyle 7 (Martin 57, 7), Green 7, Savage 8, Bailey 7, Commons 8 (Cywka 45, 8), Moxey 7 (Ball 90, -)
Subs Not Used: Deeney, Buxton, Pringle, O'Brien
Booked: Moxey (foul)
Goals: Commons 40 (assisted Moxey), Bailey 59 (assisted Cywka)
QPR: Kenny 7, Orr 6, Gorkss 6, Connolly 5, Hill 6, Derry 6 (Buzsaky 61, 6), Faurlin 5, Ephraim 6, Mackie 7, Helguson 5 (Agyemang 62, 6), Taarabt 6 (Clarke 69, 5)
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Leigertwood, Ramage, German
Booked: Hill (foul), Mackie (over celebrating)
Goals: Agyemang 90 +1 (assisted Clarke), Mackie 90+5 (unassisted)
Referee: Mark Haywood (W Yorkshire) 5 No really big decisions wrong, but he tends to go through 15 to 20 minute periods in matches where he just loses the plot and cannot get a decision right. After Derby’s second goal the next 20 minutes or so of refereeing was absolutely abysmal.
Saturday, October 24, 2009, Derby County 2 QPR 4
It was Derby’s choice of tactics that drew first blood. Nine minutes into the game a bizarre piece of refereeing from our official for the day Mark Haywood presented the Rams with the opening goal. One of those long balls towards Hulse drew a free kick midway inside the QPR half even though Gorkss had seemed to do little wrong and Hulse had actually been able to release Lee Croft wide down the right for an obvious advantage. Derby were initially not happy to be awarded the free kick but when Robbie Savage took it quickly (no sendings off for that in this game apparently) he found Rangers asleep and Dickov was able to turn in space and fire home with Cerny’s goalkeeping questionable.
Mr Haywood says in his refworld.com profile that he would like to be known as a "safe pair of hands” for the big games. Well I would not want him carrying the crockery the next time I move house. On the quarter hour Dickov crudely slid through the back of Damion Stewart on the halfway line long after the ball had gone — play on was waved as QPR kept possession but the referee did not so much as speak to Dickov once the game had stopped. Then he got in the way of a fine Robbie Savage pass that looked destined to release Teale down the left flank. Then after Buzsaky was clearly chopped down on the edge of the very edge of the box right in the centre of the goal he waved advantage on even though the ball was with Routledge out by the corner flag and came to nothing when just ten minutes earlier for the Derby goal he’d brought them back in identical circumstances and, even had he not, how can Wayne Routledge being penned in by the corner flag be more of an advantage than a free kick 18 yards from goal in the centre of the pitch? He was making my teeth itch by this stage as you can probably tell — this the referee who allowed Chris Eagles to punch in the only goal of the game when we were at Burnley last season you may recall.
Undeterred, QPR kept going and kept playing their football. Twenty minutes in they were denied a shot at goal when Taarabt tricked his way down the left flank and teed Buzsaky up for as shot right on the edge of the box only for the Hungarian to be brilliantly tackled by the referee who may as well at this stage have slung a white shirt on and started kicking the ball for Derby as well. Mr Haywood attempted to even things up a bit by awarding Faurlin a soft free kick on the edge of the box that the Argentinean took himself and curled into the side netting with Bywater beaten and a good portion of the 600 travelling QPR fans celebrating what they believed was a goal to the considerable amusement of the large home crowd.
I apologise for returning to the match official at this point, regular readers will know I don’t routinely slag off referees on here, but he was right in the thick of the action for the remaining 15 minutes of the half giving several perplexing decisions including two that lead to goals. Firstly Gary Teale was allowed to absolutely crunch into Wayne Routledge on the touchline in frustration at losing the ball without being booked, secondly Adel Taarabt was clearly fouled on the edge of the Derby box at the end of a fine move and no free kick was awarded, thirdly he then awarded Derby a free kick in their own box when it was clear that Connolly had simply lost his footing and Simpson had made no contact with him whatsoever. It was from this latest farce that Derby doubled their lead.
The Rams, just for a change, punted the ball long and straight down the middle towards Hulse from the free kick. He won the flick on but the ball had too much pace on it and carried through to Cerny easily. Between Hulse and the QPR goalkeeper Dickov theatrically, and quite comically, threw himself to ground over the back of Damion Stewart. Contact was minimal, Dickov’s chances of getting to the ball were almost non existent, it was a blatant dive, and yet a free kick was awarded and Robbie Savage needed no second invitation to curl the ball over the wall and into the top corner off the post with nothing anybody on the QPR side could do to prevent it. A fine finish and just rewards for Savage’s eye catching first half performance but in context it was a complete joke.
As was the goal that got QPR back into the game five minutes before half time. After waving away two nasty tackles on Buzsaky and Taarabt on the edge of the area Haywood then awarded one to the loaned Tottenham man when contact, while certainly there, was pretty meagre. Stephen Bywater did a horrific job of setting up a wall that was clearly too far to his right and missing at least one brick from the left side and that was all the encouragement Taarabt needed to curl the ball low around the defenders and into the bottom corner with one bounce.
To compound a half of at times infuriating and frustrating refereeing Paul Dickov was then allowed, for the second time in the game, to hack a QPR player down with a tackle from behind without a free kick or card being shown. Alejandro Faurlin, excellent and composed at the heart of the QPR midfield again, was the victim this time.
The game, which was heading for what would have been a very tense period of at least five added minutes, was killed as a contest in the final moments of normal time. A great tackle by Gorkss by his own corner flag denied Derby an attack and then Akos Buzsaky released Routledge at the other end with a miraculous 80 yard pass that split Derby clean in two. Routledge raced into the area where he was then bundled to the ground by Moxey for a clear penalty. Mr Haywood initially looked and seemed set to wave it away but was then advised by his linesman that it was indeed a spot kick and so QPR were belatedly given a chance to make it four for the third consecutive game, an opportunity gleefully seized by Buzsaky who rifled the penalty straight down the middle and into the roof of the net.
Derby: Bywater 5, Stoor 6 (Livermore 62, 6), Connolly 6, Barker 7, Moxey 5, Croft 6, Savage 7, Hughes 6 (Pearson 68, 7), Teale 6, Dickov 6 (Davies 68, 7),Hulse 6
Subs Not Used: Deeney, Buxton, Hendrie, Mills
Booked: Connolly
Goals: Dickov 10 (assisted Savage), Savage 36 (free kick)
QPR: Cerny 6, Ramage 7 (Leigertwood 60, 8), Gorkss 7, Stewart 7, Borrowdale 7, Routledge 8, Faurlin 8, Mahon 8, Buzsaky 8, Taarabt 8 (Agyemang 75, 6), Simpson 7 (Vine 75, 7)
Subs Not Used: Heaton, Hall, Alberti, Ainsworth
Goals: Taarabt 40 (free kick), Mahon 47 (assisted Routledge), Simpson 59 (assisted Buzsaky), Buzsaky 90 (penalty)
Referee: Mark Haywood (W Yorkshire) 4 Improved in the second half but I thought he was absolutely dire in the first. Free kicks, including two that led directly to goals, were given when they shouldn’t have been while other blatant ones were waved away. Tackles that should really have brought cards did not, advantage rule was applied when it shouldn’t have been and not when it should. In the first 45 I’m actually struggling to think of a decision he got right. Like I say he improved after the break, but he could scarcely have got any worse.
Saturday, April 11, Burnley 1 QPR 0
In between those two chances Burnley forced a number of free kicks and corners with Chris Eagles incurring the wrath of the away fans with a series of theatrical falls around the penalty box. Jay Rodriguez, a QPR heartbreaker once already this year, headed one of the resulting set pieces over the top while Clarke Carlisle did likewise. When Eagles tried his luck with a dive in the penalty area it was rightly waved away by referee Mark Haywood but no yellow card was shown when it really should have been.
If it was inevitable that QPR would lose this game after the week they have had then it was equally sure that the decisive goal would come from a set piece. Sure enough, four minutes into the second half, Rangers fell behind to a goal that was both poor defensively and highly controversial. A corner by Blake was met powerfully by Clarke Carlisle up from the back, eight yards out dead centre of the goal, and the ball was deflected past Radek Cerny by Chris Eagles with his arm from all of a foot away from the goal. One Devon White would have been proud of. Cerny was incandescent and chased referee Mark Haywood down the pitch to protest against the award of the goal to no avail. How ironic that Haywood says in his profile on refworld.com that he’d like to be seen as "a safe pair of hands.”
Burnley: Jensen 7, Williams 6, Carlisle 8, Caldwell 7, Kalvenes 6, Elliott 7, Alexander 7, McCann 7, Blake 7 (Gudjonsson 79, -), Eagles 7 (McDonald 89, -), Rodriguez 7 (Paterson 86, -)
Subs Not Used: Penny, Duff
Booked: Kalvenes (foul)
Goals: Eagles 49 (assisted Carlisle)
QPR: Cerny 7, Ramage 6, Gorkss 7, Connolly 7, Delaney 6, Routledge 6, Leigertwood 4, Ephraim 6 (Lopez 71, 6), Taarabt 6, Di Carmine 6 (Cook 54, 6), Vine 6 (Alberti 84, -)
Subs Not Used: Mahon, Stewart
Referee: Mark Haywood (W Yorkshire) 5 Got the big decision wrong for me, the goal should have been disallowed. Also fell for quite a bit of Eagles’ play acting in the first half and should have booked him for diving after waving away his theatrical penalty appeal.
Haywood has shown 49 yellow cards and five reds this season in 19 appointments so far, although both tallies are boosted somewhat by the six bookings and three red cards in Mansfield’s 2-1 win against Bristol Rovers in League Two — a tally so extraordinary we’ve dug the highlights reel out for you…
Last season he showed 109 yellows and three reds in 38 fixtures, topped off by eight yellows shown in a Championship draw between Derby and those loveable scamps from Millwall. His last Bristol City appointment was their 1-1 draw with Rochdale in League One last August.
Championship >>> Craig Pawson is the Premier League referee chosen to drop down for the meeting of the division’s top two — Brighton and Middlesbrough.
League One >>> Trevor Kettle has Rochdale v Colchester.
League Two >>> Neil Swarbrick, rather randomly, drops all the way down from the Premier League for Wycombe v Oxford.
The Twitter @loftforwords
Pictures — Action Images