Deadman hangs over Watford clash
Thursday, 9th Dec 2010 18:47 by Clive Whittingham

Referee Darren Deadman is the man in charge of our televised Friday night match against Watford at Loftus Road.

Referee >>> Darren Deadman (Cheshunt) refereed our game against Newcastle last season, sending off Peter Ramage.

Assistants >>> John Magill (Essex) and David Margetts (Essex)

Fourth Official >>> Fred Graham (Essex) Football League referee known for giving nothing and booking nobody.

Previously

QPR 0 Newcastle 1, Sunday May 2, 2010

Quite when half time was turned out to be a matter of some confusion. With the ball in centre field and time up a clear three blasts on the whistle reverberated around the ground and had everybody heading for the exits and music blaring from the public address system. The whistle had not come from referee Darren Deadman though, in fact he looked as confused as everybody and had to initiate a drop ball on halfway before playing out the remaining minute or so with one wit after another mimicking the half time whistle before the real thing sounded to relived cheers from all sides.

Within 20 seconds of the restart – disaster struck. Shola Ameobi beat Peter Ramage to a low cross on the edge of the box and flicked it round the defender before hitting the deck under heavy contact. On first sight I thought Ramage had taken the ball but the immediate whistle from the referee and the reaction of the players said differently and although Ramage delayed his fate by laying prostrate on the ground, head in hands, Darren Deadman duly produced the red card when he got up again and Ramage was left to make the long, lonely walk straight back to the dressing room from whence he came looking absolutely distraught and with the applause of all four sides of the ground ringing in his ears. We shall save the debate about whether any chance is a “clear goal scoring opportunity” when it’s Shola Ameobi on the ball for another time.

Rangers thought they’d taken the lead on the hour when Jay Simpson finally wriggled free of the attentions, legal at first but then highly illegal and requiring a good advantage from the referee for play to continue, of Williamson before running through on goal towards Coluccini with Priskin up in support. With Simpson low on confidence and Priskin possessing a footballing brain equivalent to his muppet lookalike Beaker a goal was never likely and sure enough after getting in each other’s way a bit Simpson played the ball too late, by which time Priskin had lolloped into his natural offside habitat and although the finish was fine and beat Krul with some considerable ease the flag had long since been raised and the goal was ruled out. A very frustrating moment, because having freed himself from Williamson the goal was actually easier to score than miss but Simpson dithered, and then chose the right option but too late while Priskin failed to hold his run. The need for quality strikers has never been more obvious than it was on Saturday – two mediocre ones would have won us this game despite the sending off.

Priskin’s mood with the officials probably didn’t improve much when his speculative long range effort deflected wide off Newcastle’s impressive full back Danny Simpson and a goal kick was awarded. Deadman is what I would call a by the book referee – there’s not a lot of common sense or leeway given – and when that pernickety, annoying, picky style of referee is combined with a linesman who flags for everything constantly and another who may as well have stuck his flag up his arse for all the use he was getting out of it it’s not a good combination. I’m sure Newcastle won’t miss the standard of officiating in this league much next season.

QPR: Cerny 7, Leigertwood 7, Ramage 6, Gorkss 6, Tosic 8, Ephraim 5 (Rose 77, 6), Faurlin 8, Buzsaky 6, Cook 6 (Parker 49, 7), Simpson 6, Priskin 6

Subs Not Used: Putnins, Balanta, Brown, Oastler, German

Sent Off: Ramage 46 (professional foul)

Newcastle: Krul 7, Simpson 7, Coloccini 7, Williamson 8, Taylor 7, Routledge 6, Barton 7, Smith 6, Guthrie 6 (Vuckic 79, 7),Best 5 (Lovenkrands 54, 8), Ameobi 5 (Carroll 79, 6)

Subs Not Used: Harper, Nolan, Pancrate, Donaldson

Booked: Williamson (foul), Taylor (foul)

Goal: Lovenkrands 71 (assisted Barton)

Referee – Darren Deadman 5 Possibly slightly harsh on the referee, but the officiating team as a whole did not cover themselves in glory on Saturday. Deadman got a number of decisions wrong, although the sending off looked fair enough, while his two linesmen may as well have slung five or six decisions into a hat and then drawn them out at random every couple of minutes such was the haphazard and at times bizarre decision making from both of them.

QPR 3 Sheff Wed 2, Monday April 13, 2009

The only two yellow cards of the first half were bizarrely both shown for play acting. Luke Varney’s dive to the floor midway inside the QPR half trying to win a free kick was barely convincing and Adel Taarabt’s similarly theatrical fall on the edge of the penalty box down at The School End also deserved further punishment. Taarabt had already incurred the wrath of the travelling supporters for going to ground too early on numerous occasions. I actually thought Marcus Tudgay was unlucky to escape a card before half time as well for a nasty, late tackle on Matt Connolly. The QPR man stayed on his feet and hopped out of the tackle before launching a complaint, perhaps if he’d rolled around on the floor further punishment may have been forthcoming and I suppose we should give him credit for that.

The game looked to be up for Rangers eight minutes after half time. Leon Clarke swooped on a loose ball in the penalty area, muscling between Gorkss and Stewart and then hitting the deck under a heavy challenge. It looked like a certain penalty from my seat and sure enough referee Darren Deadman soon arrived on the scene and pointed to the spot. Marcus Tudgay stepped up to hammer the ball down the middle past Cerny, the Czech keeper almost got a foot to the ball but the power carried it past him with something to spare. A less deserved two goal lead I struggle to recall.

Wednesday made their own change at this point, bringing on Sodje for Clarke. His first action was to challenge Gorkss for a long ball down the field – an incident that left both players laid out on the turf. Gorkss certainly came off the worst, Sodje was up pretty quickly, and although the referee took no action and actually started the game again with a drop ball I thought that it looked like n horrendous piece of play by Sodje who clearly led with his forearm. Perhaps I’m wrong but my first reaction when it happened was that it would be a definite red card. Sodje tried to make out like it was a clash of heads but you could tell by the speed he got up and played on that it was nothing of the sorts. A nasty, malicious piece of play for which QPR were awarded a bloody drop ball. Honestly two bookings for diving and nothing for that, you’ve got to wonder sometimes haven’t you?

A great chance to win the game presented itself in the eightieth minute. Another flowing move through midfield saw a ball released in behind the Wednesday defence into the left channel. Heidar Helguson gave chase but was clipped by Mark Beevers on the edge of the area as he did so and he tumbled to earth. Referee Deadman quickly awarded a free kick and then booked Beevers after consultation with the linesman – the right decision all round really as I think Helguson may have struggled to reach the ball at all never mind score with it. The free kick was no more than a foot outside the penalty area and looked to be an ideal chance but Lee Cook’s left footed shot caught the top of the wall and was cleared away to safety.

And then the referee turned on us. Suddenly a succession of bizarre free kick decisions were awarded against Rangers giving Wednesday the chance to load the penalty box with bodies and sling dangerous high balls in there. When that failed to bring an equaliser in standard time the board appeared with a six on it to bring the Wednesday fans back to life and induce nerves in those around the other three sides of the field. Injuries to Gorkss and others, substitutions and goals probably accounted for a fair wedge of it but I couldn’t help but be frustrated that the time wasting Sheff Wed had been doing when winning was now actually coming back as a reward for them and punishment for QPR.

Lee Grant had been chief amongst the clock runners but spent most of stoppage time in the QPR penalty area. After finally finding a way to beat him consistently how annoying would it have been for him to go down the other end and score one himself to deny us richly deserved points? He went close too, one of Wednesday’s three injury time corners landed plum on the head of Tudgay with Grant just half a yard behind him. Tudgay’s header looked destined for the top corner but somehow clipped the bar and tangled itself up on, rather than in, the roof of the net.

QPR: Cerny 7, Ramage 7, Stewart 7, Gorkss 8, Connolly 7, Cook 7, Mahon 8 (Leigertwood 76, 7), Taarabt 7 (Vine 56, 7), Lopez 8 (Ephraim 68, 7), Routledge 7, Helguson 8

Subs Not Used: Delaney, Miller

Booked: Taarabt (diving), Cook (foul)

Goals: Vine 62 (assisted Routledge), Mahon 74 (assisted Cook), Stewart 88 (assisted Cook)

Sheff Wed: Grant 6, Spurr 6, Hinds 4, Wood 3 (Beevers 46, 3), Buxton 5, O'Connor 5, Potter 5, Esajas 6 (Johnson 77, 6), Clarke 6 (Sodje 78, 6), Varney 5, Tudgay 6

Subs Not Used: McAllister, Jeffers

Booked: Varney (diving), Beevers (foul)

Goals: Mahon 35 og (assisted Esajas), Tudgay 53 (penalty)

Referee: Darren Deadman (Cambridgeshire) 5 Very difficult to mark here because for the majority of the game I thought he controlled it very well and played the advantage rule excellently. Hard to argue with any of the cards given or the penalty. However for me Tudgay was lucky to escape punishment in the first half, Sodje should have been sent off in the second and he didn’t even award a free kick and some of his decisions in the last five or ten minutes were perplexing.

Forest 2 QPR 2, Saturday February 8, 2009

Apart from that the game struggled to get started with four Forest players requiring treatment in the opening quarter of an hour. The home fans did not take kindly to QPR’s physical approach to the game and both the home strikers, Joe Garner and Nathan Tyson, suffered blows to the head early on. Tyson came off particularly badly from his clash with Gorkss and was replaced after a quarter of an hour by Adam Newbold with blood pouring from a nasty head wound.

Referee Darren Deadman was copping some fearful abuse from the home fans during all this but he did not seem to get too much wrong to me. To compound matters from the home fans’ point of view the only booking of the first half went Forest’s way - Moloney got one for fouling Alberti.

Forest though found a way through and took the lead on the stroke of half time with a terribly soft goal from a QPR point of view. Rangers failed to clear their lines adequately and the ball was collected 30 yards from goal by the excellent Lewis McGugan who chipped it back in behind the ramshackle back four looking for the run of Luke Chambers who had got the wrong side of Matteo Alberti. The ball seemed destined for the arms of Lee Camp but Alberti hauled Chambers back anyway - an obvious foul and penalty. Camp hammered the ball into the ground in frustration because there really did not seem any need for Alberti to do what he did. The Italian was booked for the foul.

Camp and McGugan probably faced each other in this situation several times in training during the keeper’s loan spell with Forest but the inside knowledge benefited the taker rather than the keeper and McGugan sent him the wrong way for the opening goal of the game. It was no more than McGugan deserved – he was the most impressive Forest player on the day for me along with Chambers, driving the home team forward and directing them around the field from the centre of the park. He impressed me at Loftus Road as well.

Nottm Forest: Smith 6, Chambers 7, Morgan 7, Wilson 6, Moloney 6, Heath 6, McGugan 8, Cohen 7, Thornhill 6 (Breckin 90, -), Tyson 5 (Newbold 15, 6), Garner 5 (McCleary 66, 6)

Subs Not Used: Gamble, Byrne

Booked: Moloney (foul), Newbold (foul), McCleary (foul), Morgan (foul)

Goals: McGugan 45 (penalty) Cohen 67 (assisted Chambers)

QPR: Camp 5, Connolly 7, Stewart 7, Gorkss 8, Delaney 7, Routledge 7, Leigertwood 7, Miller 6 (Ephraim 70, 6), Mahon 7, Alberti 7 (Balanta 83, 6), Di Carmine 6 (Blackstock 59, 6)

Subs Not Used: Hall, Rose

Booked: Alberti (shirt pulling)

Goals: Alberti 45 (assisted Connolly), 48 (assisted Routledge)

Referee: Darren Deadman (Cambridgeshire) 7 The Forest fans gave him plenty of stick in the first half for not clamping down on the physical nature of the QPR defending and perhaps we were lucky to get away with one or two things but overall there seemed to be a lot of moaning about not very much. The penalty was the right decision as were all the bookings. Did very little wrong all day really.

Bristol City 1 QPR 1, Saturday August 30, 2008

On Friday I made a post on a message board saying that Hogan Ephraim certainly isn't surplus to requirements at the moment, as at his current rate Ledesma was heading for an early suspension. Now I wasn't expecting him to get two yellow in this match, but I have to say it doesn't come as a surprise. With his continuing dissent to match officials and general petulant behaviour to match his ability on the ball, one has to wonder whether he will learn from this sending off. Shortly before half time, a contested throw was given to Bristol City. Ledesma was unhappy with this and threw the ball down hard and slightly to the left of McAllister, the fact that the City player could have caught it, and not played up himself is irrelevant, as it was quite clear Ledesma's intent of dissent in the manner he threw the ball.

That is now his third booking in five matches for dissent, amongst countless talkings to from referess and other senior players in the team. Regardless of the language barrier there is no excuse, and his immaturity could well have cost us two points and almost three as the game was there for the taking. Not to mention he gets a one match ban for the sending off, and is one more card away from another one match ban. As for the second yellow, I have to say I didn't see what happened at the match, however from watching the replays on the Championship it appears the referee who was looking straight at it saw nothing untoward until his linesman half the length of the pitch away started flagging. The fact he then gave a throw to QPR instead of a free kick to Bristol was further indication the referee didn't have the foggiest idea what was happening. It just appeared to me that he was just itching to give the Argentinean another yellow at the first opportunity. However, the fact that Ledesma continues to give these opportunities for referees to 'teach him a lesson' is his own fault and one that could cost us more points further down the line.

Bristol City: Basso, Orr, Carey, Fontaine, McAllister (Webster, 55 ) , Wilson (Sproule, 79 ) , Skuse (Williams, 57 ) , Johnson, McIndoe, Adebola, Maynard

Subs not used: Weale, Brooker

Goals: Adebola 25

Bookings: Orr, Sproule

QPR: Cerny, Ramage, Stewart, Connolly, Delaney, Ledesma, Leigertwood, Mahon, Cook ( Rowlands, 54 ) , Parejo ( Agyemang, 76 ) , Blackstock

Subs not used: Camp, Gorkss, Balanta

Goals: Blackstock 18

Sent Off Ledesma 50 (two bookings)

Booked: Blackstock, Cook, Ledesma, Ledesma, Rowlands

Referee Darren Deadman (Cambridgeshire) 3 Whilst he wasn't what I'd label a homer, he did after all book Sproule for diving in the box towards the end, he looked to be just itching to be given the chance to card Ledesma, and it appears normal practice for Bristol defenders to be able to climb on top of Blackstock for the whole 90 minutes with narry a word. He managed to book Rowlands for a perfectly good tackle and gave a throw to us when apparently Ledesma had committed a foul that Deadman, looking straight at it, had no problem with until the lino half a pitch away saw something nobody else did.

QPR 3 Bristol City 0, Saturday February 2, 2008

The traffic was all flowing one way but Rangers had their first serious scare of the match on the half hour when Lee Camp came for a cross only to be smashed off the ball by Dele Adebola. The ball bounced around the QPR penalty area with Camp motionless in the goal mouth. Not only did referee Deadman not give a free kick but he allowed the play to go on for 20 terrifying seconds before bringing the game to a halt as Nick Carle prepared to shoot at the open net from distance. The QPR players protested to the referee and Camp received lengthy treatment before asking a few questions of the officials himself. In the meantime every single Bristol City player had congregated by the dug out for an impromptu team talk and rearrangement by Gary Johnson.

QPR: Camp 7, Mancienne 8, Stewart 7, Rehman 7 (Connolly 76, 7), Delaney 7, Ephraim 7 (Lee 75, 7), Mahon 7, Buzsaky 7, Rowlands 8, Vine 7 (Leigertwood 89, -), Agyemang 8

Subs Not Used: Crowther, Blackstock

Booked: Rowlands (foul), Vine (diving)

Goals: Agyemang 18 (assisted Vine) 33 (assisted Buzsaky) Buzsaky 63 (assisted Agyemang)

Bristol City: Basso 6, Orr 5, Vasko 3 (Fontaine 46, 5), McCombe 2, McAllister 5, Carle 7 (Sproule 66, 6), Elliott 6, Johnson 5 (Noble 80, 6), McIndoe 6, Byfield 5, Adebola 6

Subs Not Used: Weale, Skuse

Booked: Adebola (repetitive fouling), Fontaine (foul)

Referee: Darren Deadman (Cambridgeshire) 6 - His record seems to suggest a more laid back, less fussy approach this season than last and that proved to be the case. Allowed a lot of physical contact to go unchecked and for the most part that was welcome, although the decision to allow Adebola free reign to physically attack Lee Camp in the first half was a strange one and almost cost us a goal. Hard to argue with the four cards shown.

And prior to all of that he refereed our 2006 home win against Hull City (2-0, Blackstock and Jones) in John Gregory’s first game in charge.

Stats

It’s been a relatively quiet start to the season for Deadman with only nine games refereed so far, and he missed the first two months of the season altogether. Since his late start he has shown 31 yellows (3.44 a game) and two reds. His biggest haul in a single match was five yellows and a red at Northampton v Hereford, although he has shown five yellows in a game on three other occasions. Last season he showed 94 yellows (2.54 a game) and six reds in 37 games which included two yellows and a red in the QPR v Newcastle game. His last Watford game was their 2-1 defeat at Sheff Wed in March and he also did their 2-2 home draw with Blackpool last season.

Other Listings

Championship >>> Premiership referee Mike Jones drops down to take charge of Barnsley v Sheffield United.

League Two >>> Pity the poor fans of League One who get Gavin Ward and Stuart Attwell this weekend. Ward has Shrewsbury v Cheltenham, Attwell Stockport v Crewe.

Photo: Action Images

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