Premier League referee Stuart Attwell makes a return to QPR action after a six-year break as the R’s head across town to Charlton in the League Cup on Tuesday.
Referee >>> Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire)
Assistants >>> Dan Cook (Hampshire) and Daniel Robathan (Bedfordshire)
Fourth Official >>> Alan Young (Cambridgeshire)
QPR 0 Burnley 0, Saturday December 12, 2016, Championship
QPR: Green 6; Perch 6, Onuoha 7, Hall 8, Konchesky 7; Henry 6 (Emmanuel-Thomas 74, 5), Faurlin 6, Sandro 7, Hoilett 6 (Austin 60, 6), Phillips 5
Subs not used: Chery, Luongo, Smithies, Angella, Tozser
Burnley: Heaton 6; Darikwa 7, Duff 6, Keane 6, Mee 8; Boyd 6, Jones 6, Barton 6, Arfield 6; Vokes 5, Gray 7
Subs not used: Lowton, Marney, Taylor, Kightly, Ward, Gilks, Hennings
Referee — Stuart Attwell (Warwick) 7 Having the Problem Child in town is always a conern given his past form, but he was alright here. No bookings, no disasters, no goals given even though the ball was nearer the corner flag than the net, no players randomly sent off for no reason… that’s all you can ask from this guy. His timekeeping was interesting — one minute at the end of each half, fair enough in the second but Barton was down for longer than that nursing his precious, valuable face after being hit with the football in the first.
Blackpool 0 QPR 2, Saturday December 14, 2013, Championship
More pressure after another home corner just before the half hour saw defender Kirk Broadfoot felled in the QPR penalty area but referee Stuart Attwell showed no interest in a spot kick. Attwell generates his decisions seemingly at random, and flits wildly between controlling games with common sense or killing them with cards. He was in benevolent mood here, penalising nobody for anything, and when Clint Hill hacked into the back of Davies on the halfway line without so much as a free kick being awarded the official had to go over to the touchline and calm Blackpool assistant Alex Rae who had erupted into a frothy mountain of bile and Special Brew.
Within four minutes Barton had Phillips running free into the penalty area but he waited too long to shoot and the angle had started to favour the goalkeeper by the time he unloaded a low strike. Charlie Austin also found Gilks equal to the task when Little Tom Carroll made the most of another generous call by Attwell not to award a Blackpool free kick and slid an incisive through ball into Austin’s path in the penalty box.
Blackpool: Gilks 7; Basham 6, Broadfoot 6, Cathcart 6, Robinson 6; Osbourne 6 (Barkhuizen 72, 6), Ferguson 6, Gosling 6; Ince 6, Delfouneso 5 (Grant 80, -), Davies 6 (Chopra 68, 5)
Subs not used: Warner, Dobbie, Blackett, Harris
QPR: Green 7; Simpson 6, Dunne 7, Hill 6 (Onuoha 45, 7), Assou-Ekotto 7; Carroll 6, Barton 6; Phillips 7, Jenas 6 (Henry 84, -), O’Neil 5 (Kranjcar 54, 7); Austin 7
Subs not used: Traore, Chevanton, Hoilett Murphy
Goals: Phillips 61 (unassisted), Austin 73 (assisted Phillips)
Referee — Stuart Attwell (Warwick) 7 Was in one of his moods where he was giving nothing and booking nobody for anything, which wound the home fans up somewhat as the game went away from them but is preferable to his usual card-happy random nonsense. Kept out of the game mostly.
Leeds United 0 QPR 1, Saturday August 31, 2013, Championship
In midfield the odd-couple partnership of Joey Barton and Karl Henry really excelled for the first time. They broke up play and directed QPR around the park very well all afternoon. Barton should have had his name on the score sheet to cap a decent performance as well. Played in by O’Neil after eight minutes he finished coolly past former R Paddy Kenny in the Leeds goal only for the linesman to flag him offside. Barton wasn’t off when the ball was played, when it arrived, or when he finished the chance off with consummate ease, but the assistant raised his flag regardless under duress from the home fans on the west side of the ground.
McCormack already has four goals to his name this season, but only managed nine in the whole of last season and never once looked like adding to his total in this game. Occasionally QPR became mired in problems of their own making. When Henry gave the ball away cheaply at the mid-point of the first half he needed Nedum Onuoha to wade in with a strong covering tackle. Not long after that Barton fouled Rodolph Austin right on the edge of the penalty area as the Jamaican was setting himself for a first time volley when Richard Dunne’s clearance dropped to him but referee Stuart Attwell saw nothing untoward and waved play on. When he subsequently let Murphy off for a horrible tackle on Charlie Austin it was fairly obvious that Mr Attwell, usually so card happy, was in a benevolent mood.
Leeds: Kenny 6; Peltier 6, Wootton 6, Pearce 6, Warnock 5; Murphy 6, Green 6 (Diouf 80, -), Austin 7, McCormack 5; Varney 5 (Smith 57, 6), Hunt 5 (Poleon 57, 6)
Subs not used: Ashdown, Drury, Lees, Tonge
QPR: Green 6; Simpson 7, Dunne 7, Onuoha 7, Hill 7; O’Neil 5 (Hoilett 64, 7), Henry 6 (Faurlin 72, 6), Barton 7, Wright-Phillips 6; Johnson 6 (Jenas 88, -), Austin 6
Subs not used: Murphy, Suk-Young, Zamora, Shariff
Goals: Hill 75 (assisted Barton)
Bookings: Hill 86 (foul)
Referee Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire) 7 A tad lenient with some nasty tackles at various points of the game, and very pernickety about the exact placing of free kicks, but overall very decent, with a new found common sense, and a keenness to let the game flow that simply wasn’t there a couple of years ago.
QPR 2 Sunderland 3, Tuesday December 18, 2011, Premier League
It’s said that just before the final crucial load of Indians turned up at Little Bighorn in 1876 General Custer was heard to remark that things could only get better. He was wrong then, and everybody that’s ever uttered that line has been wrong since. Things can always, always, always get worse. While Sunderland cooled their celebrations and returned to their own half it became apparent that referee Andre Marriner, absolutely excellent to this point, was no longer able to continue and would be replaced by the fourth official. The fourth official was Stuart Attwell.
Short of Little Mix announcing they will be recording the official club song for Christmas or Steve Kean being appointed as Neil Warnock’s successor with Paul Hart as his assistant it’s hard to know how much worse things could have got at this point. It never rains and all that. Stuart Attwell. There are no words.
Suddenly there was only one team that was ever going to win the game. Sunderland had gone, they were just as disorganised and dishevelled as QPR had been ten minutes previously. Sessegnon hacked down Faurlin with a challenge perhaps worthy of a red, certainly with this referee, but the tombola draw said only a yellow. This was followed by a scramble on the edge of the Sunderland area and Taarabt volley that Westwood saved well in the bottom corner. Taarabt then produced a vintage 360 turn on the corner of the penalty area and hammered a shot over the bar, then collected a loose ball on the edge of the area after Derry had almost released Mackie and curled a low shot that Westwood was equal to. Taarabt was revelling in it, his introduction had changed the game, it was the Taarabt of last season.
Straight from the kick off Rangers went in hunt of an equaliser. A trademark ball with the outside of the boot from Taarabt drew a deflected header wide of the post from Helguson —Attwell’s random tombola machine with which he uses to make decisions initially said goal kick but with the QPR players clearly astonished and the Sunderland players laughing he gave it another spin and awarded a corner at the second attempt.
With a minute left they had to defend another corner from the same side after Kenny had flung himself left to keep out a long range striker from full back Phil Bardsley. This time Richardson went to the near post where Wes Brown flicked a powerful header over Kenny to the back post where Faurlin was stationed but the Argentinean could only head the ball onto the underside of the bar and then into the roof of the net under pressure from Bendtner. Brief hope that it may be disallowed was sparked when the linesman on the Ellerslie Road side of the ground flagged frantically, but he was merely ensuring that Attwell’s random decision draw awarded the goal rather than a QPR corner or a drop ball on halfway.
QPR: Kenny 7, Young 6, Gabbidon 4, Connolly 5 (Bothroyd 90, -), Traore 7 (Hall 80, -), Barton 5, Faurlin 6, Derry 6, Wright-Phillips 6 (Taarabt 46, 7), Mackie 6, Helguson 7
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Hill, Campbell, Smith
Booked: Faurlin (foul), Young (foul)
Goals: Helguson 63 (assisted Faurlin), Mackie 67 (assisted Helguson)
Sunderland: Westwood 6, O'Shea 6, Bramble 6, Brown 7, Bardsley 6, Larsson 7 (Gardner 75, 7), Cattermole 6, Vaughan 5 (Colback 71, 6), Richardson 7, Sessegnon 8, Bendtner 8
Subs Not Used: Carson, Kilgallon, Ji, McClean, Elmohamady
Booked: Sessegnon (foul), Cattermole (repetitive fouling)
Goals: Bendtner 19 (assisted Richardson), Sessegnon 53 (unassisted), Brown 89 (assisted Richardson)
Referee: Andre Marriner (W Midlands) 8 (Stuart Attwell 53, (Warwick) 3) If ever you needed evidence of just what a truly awful referee Stuart Attwell is, here you have it. For 53 minutes this game was calmly controlled and managed by Andre Marriner who hardly put a foot wrong. Play flowed, the crowd was absorbed totally in the game, I can hardly recall hearing the whistle. Within minutes of coming on Attwell had awarded a blatant corner as a goal kick and then changed his mind when people moaned at him — things got steadily more farcical from there. Suddenly everything was a free kick. Every little bit of contact was a foul. Suddenly decisions were wrong - clearly and repeatedly wrong. Suddenly the crowd was up and on the referee’s back. I joke about his random draw mechanism of making decisions, which you can tell from his positioning and body language are often complete guesses, but to be honest I would actually prefer a random tombola machine on the halfway line with one of the cast of The Only Way is Essex drawing decisions out every 45 seconds to this silly little prick. You couldn’t get any more decisions wrong doing it that way. The difference between a good referee and a bad one laid bare in the same match.
QPR 3 West Brom 1, Saturday march 6, 2010, Championship
QPR were buoyed by that opening goal and threatened to break away again soon after only for Mulumbu to haul back Taarabt as he was about to release Ephraim down the left — referee Stuart Attwell, a man with QPR history, failed to show him a yellow card when he should have done, but in fairness he had a very good game apart from this and QPR did score a second goal within five minutes anyway.
There was still time for two yellow cards in injury time — one for Cech for pulling back Priskin, the other for Priskin for demanding Cech was booked. I’m not in the habit of praising the award of yellow cards but frankly I applaud Attwell’s stance in booking Priskin as this continental style of requesting cards for other players is not something I want to see in the English game.
The renewed thrust installed into Rangers’ play by Buzsaky resulted in a third, game killing, goal with 23 minutes left to play although once again the goal owed more to ridiculous goalkeeping than anything good QPR did. The problems for the visitors started when Adel Taarabt tricked Chris Brunt by the dugouts and was then cynically hauled back by the Northern Irishman who was rightly booked by referee Attwell. The free kick was taken by Akos Buzsaky who launched a high, hanging delivery to the back post. Everybody missed it, including Carson, who then could only watch as it bounced up and over his head, off the inside of the post, and then along the line from where it had enough spin to carry it into the net. Initially I was sure this goal would be disallowed as the linesman was standing there with his flag up, and Adel Taarabt had been standing five yards offside when the kick was taken, however once the ball hit the net he suddenly seemed to change his mind and flag for the goal and the R’s were three one up.
QPR: Ikeme 8, Connolly 7, Gorkss 7, Stewart 7, Hill 6, Taarabt 7 (Ramage 69, 6), Leigertwood 7, Faurlin 8, Ephraim 6 (Buzsaky 59, 7), Priskin 6 (Vine 77, 6), Simpson 7
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Balanta, Borrowdale, German
Booked: Priskin (dissent), Faurlin (foul)
Goals: Simpson 13 (assisted Taarabt), Connolly 18 (assisted Faurlin), Buzsaky 67 (free kick)
West Brom: Carson 3, Reid 6, Tamas 6, Olsson 7, Cech 6 (Miller 64, 5), Morrison 6 (Dorrans 68, 6), Mulumbu 7, Watson 6, Brunt 7, Thomas 7, Cox 6
Subs Not Used: Kiely, Mattock, Koren, Moore, Meite
Booked: Cech (foul), Brunt (foul)
Goals: Brunt 36 (assisted Thomas)
Referee: Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire) 7 A referee with QPR history, but hard to think of too much he got wrong in this game. Marks off because I think West Brom probably should have had a penalty in the second half when Gorkss wrestled Cox to the ground, and Mulumbu should have been booked for a cynical foul in the first half. Other than that though it was hard to argue with the four cards awarded, in fact I would go so far as to praise him for booking Priskin for his mock card flashing gesture that we just don’t want to see.
QPR 1 Ipswich Town 3, Saturday February 21, 2009, Championship
Straight after half time Rangers had a reasonable shout for a penalty waved away by Stuart Attwell. A cross from the right by Miller looked all set for the back of the net with Leigertwood racing onto it ahead of Norris until the Ipswich man put an arm in Leigertwood’s back and pushed him past the ball. This was a more than decent claim but Attwell bases ninety per cent of his decisions on guesswork and when he is in a position to see something he looks completely frozen by fear and tends to give nothing.
While all this was going on Alex Bruce blocked a Mikele Leigertwood shot with his arm for a clear penalty but Attwell, staring straight at it, froze again and neither gave the decision nor waved it away. Then Balanta collected the ball deep in the penalty area amid a goal mouth scramble but just could not turn and get a shot away. Leigertwood also had two long range shots — the first deflected straight into the arms of Richard Wright, the other zipped a foot too high with many parts of the ground expecting the top corner of the net to ripple.
Ipswich sent on Garvan for Counago as they looked to shut up the shop and Ben Thatcher picked up the first booking of the match after wasting time over a throw in and then heaving the ball onto the School End roof to run the clock down after the whistle had gone. A stupid booking, and he knew exactly what he was doing.
With four minutes to go Wayne Routledge had his shirt pulled on the edge of the box by Norris but Cook hit a shot straight into the top of the wall — a real waste. He then curled the resulting corner straight into the side netting which summed the night up for Cook and his team mates. To compound the frustration Dexter Blackstock’s powerful header on eighty nine minutes flew straight at Wright and then Ipswich were awarded a free kick on the edge of their own box when Routledge appeared to have been hauled back by McAuley who then took the ball with the tackle. Why Ipswich got a free kick from all of that only Attwell would be able to tell you.
QPR: Camp 5, Connolly 4, Gorkss 5, Hall 4, Delaney 4 (Blackstock 67, 5) Routledge 6, Mahon 2, Leigertwood 6, Miller 5 (Balanta 73, 5) Cook 5, Di Carmine 6 (Helguson 55, 4)
Subs Not Used: Stewart, Alberti
Goals: Di Carmine 3 (assisted Routledge)
Ipswich: R Wright 7, D Wright 7, McAuley 8, Bruce 7, Thatcher 5, Miller 7, Norris 8, Civelli 6 (Walters 61, 7), Quinn 7, Stead 8 (Lisbie 69, 6), Counago 8 (Garvan 82, 6)
Subs Not Used: Supple, Balkestein
Booked: Thatcher (time wasting)
Goals: Stead 14 (assisted Norris), Counago 61 (unassisted), Walters 70 (assisted Quinn)
Referee: Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire) 6 Not bad, certainly a lot better than last time, but not good at the same time. I still cannot believe how many decisions he makes based on complete guesswork. Countless times corners, goal kicks and throw ins took an age to decide as Attwell was poorly positioned and then had to look at his linesmen and ultimately take a wild guess. QPR were unlucky not to have two penalties and Gavin Mahon was lucky to escape without a booking. Looks terrified when faced with a decision and the amount of complete guess work involved in his decision making explains the horrendous mistakes he has been making this season.
QPR 1 Birmingham 0, Tuesday October 28, 2008, Championship
QPR never beat Birmingham, and didn’t look very likely to do so here when calamity match official Stuart Attwell harshly showed a straight red card to Mikele Leigertwood before half time, but with Hall and Stewart standing firm at the back and Damiano Tommasi adding class, guile and grit to the midfield the R’s rarely looked like relinquishing a lead given to them in fine style by Samuel Di Carmine just after half time.
Ainsworth’s team talk promised to be a simple one, much more of the same please, but a minute before he got a chance to deliver it his world came crashing down around his ears. A break in play allowed Lee Carsley to have the latest in a long line of conversations designed solely to influence the match officials. Not since my Mum was last dragged to a QPR game has anybody been so miserable and sour faced at a game at Loftus Road as Carsley was on Tuesday night. He was a whistle and a set of cards away from refereeing the game himself and after yet another chat with Attwell, this time about Mikele Leigertwood, the former Everton man finally got the reaction he’d been looking for.
Carsley latched onto a loose ball in midfield and was immediately fouled high and late by Leigertwood. Before I could even finish saying "that’s our first booking” Attwell was on the scene, semi erect, with a red card in hand. He just couldn’t wait to do it, he gave himself no time to think about the decision, the card was out before Carsley had even hit the deck. Carsley’s latest moan fresh in his ears and an ego demanding a feed inside his chest the young referee had done it again — another rank and wrong decision, another game seemingly ruined.
QPR were fuming, rightly so, and just as he’d done with his ghost goal decision at Watford a month before Attwell decided the best thing for him to do would be to inflame the situation further rather than attempt to calm things down. In stoppage time Birmingham looked to make the most of their extra man with a break down field, James McFadden was clearly pushed over by Tommasi as he attempted to join in but the referee waved play on advantage. McFadden though took the law into his own hands with a clear kick out at the Italian in full view of the referee. Attwell saw it, pointed at both players, and promised to come back and show cards. On first viewing it looked like the numbers may be evened up. Not so. The next break in play was actually the half time whistle at which point Tommasi was booked, fair enough, and McFadden was let off without so much as a talking to. A scandalous piece of refereeing again. QPR players and coaches surrounded the official as he left the field — sadly the FA think he’s brilliant, he thinks he’s brilliant, and he doesn’t need to trouble himself wasting time talking to the likes of us. QPR will appeal Leigertwood’s red card and lose.
In blizzard like conditions Attwell added four minutes to normal time, and it turned out to be one of the most action packed periods of added time we’ve seen at Loftus Road for many a long month. Needless to say most of it revolved around our increasingly eccentric match officials. First a neat move down the right between Ledesma and Ephraim saw the Argentinean skip into the area and crash to earth under what looked like a push from Murphy. Attwell looked at the incident, looked at his linesman, looked at the incident again and then almost as an afterthought as Birmingham prepared to launch the ball back down the field he booked Ledesma for diving and awarded a free kick.
Ledesma does dive, we all know that, and it was impossible to see if he did or didn’t here from my point of view but the time it took Attwell to come to a decision and the way he looked at the linesman and everybody else for help leads me to believe that this decision, like so many of his on the night, was complete and utter guesswork.
He wasn’t finished yet either — the third yellow card of the evening for a QPR player went to Radek Cerny for time wasting. It capped an at times astounding refereeing display.
QPR: Cerny 8, Leigertwood 6, Stewart 8, Hall 8, Connolly 8, Ledesma 7, Rowlands 8, Tommasi 8, Cook 5 (Mahon 46, 7), Blackstock 6 (Buzsaky 68, 7), Di Carmine 7 (Ephraim 74, 7)
Subs Not Used: Cole, Parejo
Sent Off: Leigertwood (45)
Booked: Tomassi (foul), Cerny (time wasting), Ledesma (diving)
Goals: Di Carmine 54 (assisted Tommasi)
Birmingham: Maik Taylor 7, Parnaby - (Wilson 12, 5), Martin Taylor 5, Ridgewell 5, Queudrue 6, McFadden 6, Carsley 5, Nafti 6 (64, 4), Agustien 6, Phillips 6, Jerome 5 (Bent 64, 6)
Subs Not Used: Doyle, Quashie
Booked: Wilson, Queudrue
Referee: Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire) 2 I’ll write in more detail about this guy later in the week but for now let me just say that the FA have got to stop trying to fast track this kid too far too fast. He was so out of his depth here it was embarrassing to watch, losing the plot more and more as the game went on giving one crass and incompetent decision after another. The sending off was harsh, he allowed Lee Carsley to order him about all night with no come back, and he got countless decisions wrong — ranging from difficult calls to the simplest of throw ins. I lost count of the amount of times he clearly had no clue what to give and guessed, I can forgive that once or twice in a match but he was doing it several times a minute at one stage. The amount of times the ball went out for a throw in and he had to guess whose throw in that was after exchanging blank looks with his linesmen had to be seen to be believed. Abysmal.
Quite the start to the 2022/23 season for Stuart — one game, Differdange v Ljubljana in the Europa Conference League, 2-1 away win, 3-2 on aggregate after extra time, and just the ten yellow cards.
After a botched start to his career when the PGMOL fast tracked him way too high, way too soon, and had put him through the humiliation of being removed from the top flight list, Attwell has settled down into one of the most established Premier League referees. He’s also been a regular in European competitions for the last four seasons, and made his Champions League bow last season at Malmo. Of his 28 appointments last year, 20 of them were in the Prem and only one Championship — he showed 99 yellows and just the one red across all of that. Slightly more prolific the previous year with 107 yellows and four reds from 28 games, three of those four reds coming in his final five games of the season.
Attwell hasn’t had a Charlton game since 2015/16 when he had them for two 3-0 Championship defeats at home Brentford and away to Sheff Wed, and a 4-1 League Cup win at Dagenham. He’s 4-1-1 from six career games with QPR, and 4-1-3 from eight with Charlton.
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Pictures — Action Images