It's Premier League referee Simon Hooper for the clash of QPR and Watford on Sky this Sunday breakfast time.

Referee >>> Simon Hooper (Wiltshire)

Assistants >>> Adrian Holmes (West Yorks) and Simon Long (Cornwall)

Fourth Official >>> Josh Smith (Lincs)

Previously

QPR 1 West Brom 0, Saturday January 15, 2022, Championship

They posed some, limited, threat. Initially we got to see what a keen and interested Matt Phillips looks like, which was nice and made a change, though that soon subsided — LFW’s official joke writer (not a salaried position) Simmo’s exasperated “if I pulled out as often as Matt Phillips I wouldn’t have to sit in the family stand” rings truer every time I lay eyes on a player with the talent, physique and speed to be one of the best in the country, built around the heart of a dead toad. Rob Dickie, slightly out of sorts I thought, made a ninth minute attempt on Jayson Molumby's life and was fortunate it was a referee as jolly and lenient as Simon Hooper — yellow card, let’s get on with the quiz.

Barbet like this was quite a thing. Absolutely rabid, to the point that Dike decided the only thing for it was to smash him into the advertising hoardings by the dugouts splitting his head open, a deliberate act that he was completely in control of and knew exactly what he was doing, somewhere between a yellow and a red card and yet not even awarded as a free kick by frequently lenient referee Simon Hooper. A cunt's trick, he knows it, we know it, everybody knows it. I thought we took that incident a little bit lightly as a team in truth, I’m sure Livermore would have been straight across with a red card if the roles were reversed, but there was no such tepidness from Yoann, who played every minute of last season, is ever present in the league this, and wasn’t about to let a hole in the head interrupt his afternoon this time. New shirt, new shorts, stitches at the side of the pitch, novelty condom stretched over his mane, he got back up, walked back out there, won every header, tackled every tackle, kicked every ball, answered every question, won every prize. When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer, Yoann Barbet is 28. His missus is absolutely banging as well. Seeing him get up like that and carry on was quite the statement piece — like the bastard love child of Kaspars Gorkss and Alan McDonald. It’s not your day when an opponent does that. How do you like the life sucked out of you West Brom? I thought he was going to go in fucking goal at one point. Step aside, I’ll deliver this baby. Take your gym selfies elsewhere Daryl. Meeting adjourned.

QPR: Marshall 6; Adomah 7, Dickie 6, Dunne 8, Barbet 9, Wallace 7; Johansen 7, Field 7, Willock 7 (Ball 90+3, -); Dykes 6, Gray 6 (Austin 54, 7)

Subs not used: Amos, Thomas, Dozzell, Odubajo, Walsh

Goals: Austin 89 (assisted Willock)

Bookings: Dickie 9 (foul), Field 70 (foul)

West Brom: Button 6; Gardner-Hickman 6, Furlong 6, Clarke 7, Townsend 6, Reach 5; Livermore 6, Molumby 6; Robinson 6, Phillips 6 (Dike 59, 7), Grant 6

Subs not used: Diangana, De Castro, Taylor, Ashworth, Palmer, Fellows

Bookings: Molumby 90+7 (handball)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 7 Honestly, I could write a bloody thesis on this performance. There are two, possibly three, big decisions wrong, which decided the game. I thought Johansen was wrong side of Townsend, knew it, and was very lucky to get away with his challenge in our box just before the winning goal, in which Charlie Austin is very obviously offside throughout. The only debate about Daryl Dike’s snidey cunt’s trick on Barbet is whether it’s a yellow or a sending off — to not even give a free kick, let alone a card, is madness. I’m sure Jake Livermore would have been quick on the scene with a red card if the roles had been reversed. Again, as at Bristol City, I’m sure if I was blogging for the opposition, I’d be giving a four and talking about key decisions costing my team the game. And yet… I like this referee. I like the way he referees. There doesn’t have to be a big fuss about everything, not every piece of contact is a foul, not every foul is a card, every situation doesn’t require a big palaver and performance before we get to a restart. Perhaps, in situations like Dike v Barbet the desperation to be as hands off as possible actually lets him down, because that was certainly a thick yellow for me, but I’d much rather games be refereed like this, and endure those kind of mistakes as a result, than some of the nonsense we’ve endured in recent weeks. I like James Linington, Geoff Eltringham, Andy Davies and a few others for the same reason — Mark Halsey-style refereeing. So, yeh, maybe I’m being contrary, but fuck it.

QPR 1 Wycombe 0, Tuesday March 9, 2021, Championship

What affinity there does exist between the clubs built up over Ainsworth’s nine-year stint and dozens of player swaps was tested to the limit by a series of outlandish second half penalty appeals. Captain Birdseye went first under precious little contact from Jordy De Wijs, then Alex Samuel — who spent more time on the ground than he did upright last night — tried his luck with the Dutchman, adding a dramatic scream for effect. Referee Simon Hooper couldn’t help but laugh. Come on lads, we’ve all had a drink.

QPR: Dieng 7; Dickie 7, De Wijs 7 (Kakay 76, 6), Barbet 6; Kane 6, Johansen 7, Field 6, Chair 6 (Cameron 65, 6), Wallace 6; Austin 5 (Dykes 65, 5), Willock 7 (Adomah 88, -)

Subs not used: Lumley, Bonne, Ball, Thomas, Hämäläinen

Goals: Chair 23 (assisted Willock)

Wycombe: Stockdale 5; McCarthy 6, Knight 6, Tafazolli 6, Jacobson 6; Thompson 5 (Ikpeazu 76, 5), Gape 6 (Oforbohr 83, -); Samuel 5 (Kashket 83, -), Mehmeti 7, Horgan 5; Muske 5 (Akinfenwa 69, 5)

Subs not used: Allsop, Grimmer, Stewart, McCleary, Onyedimna

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 7 There are quibbles — at least one of those ridiculous Wycombe dives in the penalty area second half should have been a yellow — but I’ve a lot of time for games refereed like this, calmly, with few cards, and the histrionics, play acting and screaming not just ignored but also laughed at. Basically refereed this in first gear, needn’t really have changed out of his suit.

QPR 0 Fulham 2, Saturday January 9, 2021, FA Cup Third Round

QPR: Dieng 6; Dickie 6, Cameron 6 (Masterson 90, 6), Barbet 7; Kane 5, Carroll 6 (Thomas 82, 5), Ball 6, Chair 6 (Bettache 82, 6), Osayi-Samuel 6 (Hämäläinen 90, 5); Bonne 4 (Kelman 73, 5), Dykes 5

Subs not used: Willock, Barnes, Adomah

Bookings: Cameron 35 (foul), Barbet 112 (foul), Hämäläinen 115 (foul)

Fulham: Rodak 7; Aina 6, Ream 6, Kongolo 7 (Hector 67, 6); Tete 6 (Odoi 90, 6), Onomah 7, Reed 6 (Kebano 78, 7), Loftus-Cheek 6 (Robinson 90, 7), Bryan 8; Cavaleiro 5 (Reid 67, 7), Mitrovic 5

Subs not used: Adarabioyo, Fabri, Carvalho, Jasper

Goals: Reid 104 (assisted Mitrovic), Kebano 105+2 (assisted Onomah)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Hampshire) 8 Probably the best player on the pitch. Gave the game every chance, bought none of the attempts to con him by Mitrovic and others. A calm, unobtrusive authority.

QPR 0 Birmingham 0, Saturday October 24, 2020, Championship

This in turn stirred Birmingham, Dieng required to make an unorthodox flappy clearance as Roberts threatened again, then picking the ball out of the net once more for the game’s second disallowed goal. Brum’s technique of standing Hogan offside for offensive free kicks, then trying to bring him in on the second phase of play after winning the first ball causing QPR all kinds of issues — this a team that scored 15 times, more than any other side, off corners in the Championship last season. Similarly, at the other end, the away team’s willingness to let QPR play their own corners low along the ground into Bonne right by the near post a risky strategy that almost caught them out. Kakay countered immediately, was fouled by Ivan Sunjic, and referee Simon Hooper was rather generous in not issuing a yellow card. Under heavy Birmingham pressure Dieng saved well off to his left from Sunjic on the hour, then one of several rebounds in quick succession was blocked heroically by Barbet — the second such occasion the Frenchman had chucked his body in the way of a goalbound shot, one of his better days.

QPR: Dieng 7; Kakay 6, Dickie 6, Barbet 7, Wallace 5 (Hamalainen 30, 6); Cameron 5; Adomah 6 (Ball 69, 6), Chair 5, Bonne 5, Osayi-Samuel 6; Dykes 6 (Willock 69, 5)

Subs not used: Kelly, Kane, Masterson, Bettache

Bookings: Dickie 18 (foul)

Birmingham: Etheridge 6; Roberts 6, Dean 7, Friend 6; Colin 6, Gardner 6, San Jose 6, Sunjic 7, Pedersen 6; Leko 6 (Jutkiewicz 62, 5), Hogan 5 (Sanchez 76, -)

Subs not used: Prieto, Kieftenbeld, Bela, Dacres-Cogley, Boyd-Munce

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 6 Quite lenient with the cards as we’ve come to expect from him, and played on through some pretty obvious looking fouls, but not too bad in a mediocre game.

QPR 4 Blackburn 2, Saturday October 5, 2019, Championship

There was a short corner, and a blocked shot from Ryan Manning. There was an early yellow card for Corry Evans after a long advantage — referee Simon Hooper showing Manchester’s Matt Donohue how that rule is supposed to work after his nonsense on Wednesday. Greg Cunningham, on loan from Cardiff, was replaced injured after a quarter of an hour. There was a brave header from Angel Rangel and Liam Kelly came charging through a panicked penalty area to sort things out on his home league debut.

Of course, the other thing Barbet likes to do very much is concede penalties. For all of QPR’s excellence in the early part of the second half, they were still typically open at the back and had a let off before the hour when Williams found the net but was denied by an offside flag. Warning not heeded, within a minute Bradley Dack was scything through the heart of the defence towards the goal and the Barbinger of Doom honed into view with a trademark lunging tackle which was one of the easier penalties referee Simon Hooper has had to judge in his career. Dack scored with consummate ease, doing Kelly all ends up. It was the fifth penalty Rangers have conceded from in league and cup this year, the most in the Championship, and three of them have been given away by Barbet. I’m starting to come round to the idea of a hard Brexit.

QPR: Kelly 6; Rangel 7, Leistner 7, Barbet 6, Manning 8; Cameron 7, Scowen 8; Osayi-Samuel 7 (Hugill 61, 7), Eze 8, Chair 8 (Pugh 72, 6); Wells 7 (Mlakar 82, -)

Subs not used: Lumley, Kane, Wallace, Ball

Goals: Wells 30 (assisted Osayi-Samuel, pre-assist Manning), Eze 49 (assisted Manning), Osayi-Samuel 60 (assisted Scowen), Hugill 77 (assisted Manning)

Bookings: Barbet 56 (foul), Cameron 65 (foul), Manning 90+1 (delaying restart), Hugill 90+2 (foul)

Blackburn: Walton 5; Bennett 5, Lenihan 5 (Adarabioyo 67, 5), Williams 5, Cunningham 5 (Bell 17, 5); Evans 6, Rothwell 8; Armstrong 6, Dack 7, Downing 6; Graham 5 (Holtby 46, 6)

Subs not used: Johnson, Gallagher, Samuel, Leutwiler

Goals: Dack 57 (penalty, won Dack), Armstrong 86 (assisted Bennett)

Bookings: Evans 6 (foul), Lenihan 45+1 (foul), Bell 58 (foul), Williams 90+2 (foul)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 8 Lot of bookings, eight in total, in a not particularly dirty game. But going through them, they were all the correct decision, and he got the penalty right as well which was the big decision in that match. Overall I thought he contributed to the spectacle and was pretty good.

QPR 1 Derby County 1, Tuesday March 6, 2018, Championship

Not good enough, as it turned out, for the winner, but that Smyth-Freeman combination had at least brought a richly deserved equaliser a few moments before. Derby, and Andre Wisdom in particular, had long since decided the only way to achieve brief respite from Smyth’s persistent niggle and speedy counter attacks was to whack him. Referee Simon Hooper, for some reason, had also long since decided that they would be allowed to do this without receiving a yellow card. But when Wisdom, yet again, felled Smyth tight to the byline it gave Freeman a chance to chip a cross to the near post where Massimo Luongo made the most of a defensive sleep to power in a header unmarked. Freeman moving back ahead of Wolves' duo Douglas and Jota in the division's assists chart in the process - this was his eleventh.

What seemed like a fairly blatant tug by Keogh on Matt Smith as he attacked a cross at the back post was waved away by Hooper, like so many other penalty appeals by QPR’s big target man have been this season. He does chuck himself around, he does pull and push as much as he gets pulled and pushed, but Keogh was wrong side, knew it and definitely hauled him down. I think I could name 750,000 things more likely than Matt Smith getting a penalty (QPR haven’t had a spot kick since the opening day of the season) and the impression that referees have a preconceived idea about him and judge incidents with that bias is really grating.

QPR: Smithies 6; Furlong 7 (Wszolek 74, 6), Onuoha 6, Robinson 6, Bidwell 6; Scowen 6, Luongo 6, Freeman 7; Smyth 8, Smith 5 (Lynch 86, -), Washington 4 (Eze 60, 7)

Subs not used: Cousins, Ingram, Manning, Perch

Goals: Luongo 86 (assisted Freeman)

Bookings: Scowen 90+3 (foul)

Derby: Carson 6; Wisdom 5, Keogh 6, Davies 6, Forsyth 6; Huddlestone 5, Ledley 5 (Johnson 15, 5); Weimann 7, Palmer 8 (Vydra 83, -), Lawrence 5; Nugent 6 (Jerome 71, 5)

Subs not used: Anya, Pearce, Roos, Hanson

Goals: Weimann 38 (assisted Palmer)

Bookings: Forsyth 15 (foul), Weimann 82 (foul), Lawrence 87 (foul)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 5 First and foremost, I thought he was incredibly lenient on several Derby players who, consistently stripped by Smyth for pace, resorted to fairly blatantly trying to boot him out of the match. Andre Wisdom, it seemed, would have been let off with a warning if he’d pulled a gun on the little QPR winger — no booking at all, despite several hacks at him. Secondly, I hate it when referees obviously get pre-conceived ideas in their mind and make decisions accordingly. Matt Smith pulls as much as he is pulled, and is prone to throwing himself to ground in the penalty box, so gets little sympathy from referees, but he was obviously pulled back in the second half by a defender who’d ended up on the wrong side of his man and knew it. Hooper was waving an obvious spot kick away before the incident had even happened.

Cardiff City 2 QPR 1, Saturday August 26, 2017, Championship

Cardiff: Etheridge; Peltier, Morrison, Bamba, Bennett; Gunnarsson, Ralls; Mendez-Laing, Damour (Ward 82), Hoilett (Manga 82); Zohore

Subs not used: Richards, Tomlin, Halford, Murphy, Bogle

Goals: Hoilett 22 (unassisted), Bamba 45+1 (assisted Hoilett)

QPR: Smithies 7, Furlong 7, Caulker 3 (Wszolek 72, 6), Onuoha 5, Bidwell 6, Mackie 6 (Sylla 61, 6), Luongo 7. Scowen 7, Freeman 8, Smith 6, Washington 5 (Ngbakoto 70, 5)

Subs not used: Lua Lua, Baptiste, Robinson, Ingram

Goals: Smith 15 (assisted Freeman)

Bookings: Furlong 38 (foul)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 7 Continuing a slightly disconcerting trend at the start of this season for calm, competent, assured refereeing with few cards. It’ll never last.

QPR 1 Brighton 2, Friday April 7, 2017, Championship

During the height of their first half dominance Brighton had two goals disallowed for offside — the first, from Murray, fairly clear, the second, from Hemed, tight as a mouse’s waistcoat — before they found the net with two legitimate ones. Onuoha headed wide of his own near post under pressure, Robinson headed another dangerous cross clear at the back post. The idea that QPR were struggling to hang onto the coat tails of their visitors furthered by James Perch’s latest disgusting, hideous lunge on an opponent in first half stoppage time that should have been a red card but, unbelievably, drew only a stern word from referee Simon Hooper.

There were chances for QPR. Conor Washington streaked away into space from halfway and fired over, Manning curled a shot towards the far corner and Stockdale saved, Washington had a shot blocked when a long throw fell his way, Perch also saw an effort blocked before it reached goal. Lewis Dunk - like Lynch an apparently very good Championship centre half but prone to moments of brain fart potent enough to clear a room — deflected a bouncing ball in the penalty away with his upper arm for a very decent penalty shout which Hooper ignored.

QPR: Smithies 6; Perch 5, Onuoha 5, Lynch 5 (Sylla 77, 5), Robinson 5 (Ngbakoto 66, 6); Luongo 7, Hall 6, Manning 8; Morrison 4 (Freeman 66, 8); Washington 6, Smith 7

Subs not used: Bidwell, Goss, Ingram, Wszolek

Goals: Smith 74 (assisted Freeman)

Brighton: Stockdale 6; Bruno 6, Hünemeier 6, Dunk 5, (Tomori 45, 6) Pocognoli 7; Knockaert 7 (Norwood 83, -) Stephens 8, Sidwell 6, March 7; Murray 7, Hemed 5 (Murphy 78, 6)

Subs not used: Mäenpää, Skalak, Forren, Akpom

Goals: Murray 58 (assisted Hemed), Pocognoli 64 (direct free kick, won Murray)

Bookings: Pocognoli 86 (time wasting)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 6 I really wanted to give him a high mark, simply because I much prefer this style of refereeing where cards are kept in the pocket and the game is given every chance. But Perch should have had a red card for his standard wild lunge, Onuoha certainly should have been booked for a bad tackle late on, and in the end the only yellow handed out was for time wasting and though it’s certainly nice to see that finally being punished it felt a bit wrong to see somebody booked for that when, Perch in particular, had been left off with something far worse. Throw in the QPR penalty appeal and it doesn’t sound great, but I came away initially thinking he’d done quite well.

QPR 1 Blackburn 2, Saturday January 7, 2017, FA Cup Third Round

There were other chances for the visitors too. Prolonged pressure around the midway point of the first half saw Gallagher shoot just wide, though he had been flagged. Later the target man claimed a high boot in the area — one of those you’d probably get on the halfway line, but referee Simon Hooper said no penalty.

Perch’s wild challenge on 72 minutes deserved a yellow at least, but Hooper let him off, and I’d have booked him for his left footed speculator from 30 yards as well which set off at speed towards the old Television Centre. How did he honestly think that was going to go?

QPR: Ingram 5; Perch 5, Onuoha 6, Lynch 4, Bidwell 5; Luongo 4 (Cousins 82, -), Hall 6, Eze 7 (Ngbakoto 18, 5); Gladwin 4 (Shodipo 56, 6), Wszolek 6, Mackie 6

Subs not used: El Khayati, Lumley, Manning, Hamalainen

Goals: Bidwell 61 (penalty, won Ngbakoto)

Blackburn: Raya 6; Marshall 6, Greer 6, Williams 6, Mulgrew 6; Feeney 7, Akpan 6 (Nyambe 74, 6), Lowe 6, Bennett 7; Gallagher 7 (Brown 90+3, -), Graham (Stokes 87, -)

Subs not used: Steele, Tomlinson, Mahoney, Travis

Goals: Lynch og 7 (assisted Bennett/Gallagher); Feeney 58 (assisted Gallagher)

Bookings: Marshall 90 (foul)

QPR Star Man — Jamie Mackie 6 Usual reasons.

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 6 Marshall booking correct, Perch should have had one as well, penalty was incredibly soft so marks off there, not too bad overall.

Huddersfield 2 QPR 1, Saturday September 17, 2016, Championship

QPR flickered into life occasionally. Tjaronn Chery, who I’m also not convinced is offering enough away from home to justify his first name on the team sheet status, got into a dust up with Jonathan Hogg midway through the first half which referee Simon Hooper could have let go with a word on the run but elected to book both players for. Massimo Luongo shot wide after 26 minutes, but he was largely anonymous and the comparison between him and his fellow countryman Aaron Moy, who was on the same round the world international trip a fortnight ago but scored a winner at Leeds last week and was completely dominant here, summed up the difference between the sides.

The introduction of Sylla livened things up, Onuoha had a similar effort to his Wigan goal blocked away by the crowd, but they’d left it too late to put up resistance and Huddersfield weren’t as troubled as the scoreline suggests. Frustration started to manifest itself in yellow cards — Polter for a series of fouls, Borysiuk for deliberately interrupting a counter attack with a cynical shirt pull, Sylla very harshly for trying to retrieve the ball from Huddersfield sub Dean Whitehead who received no punishment for his obvious attempt to waste time.

Huddersfield: Ward 6; Smith 7, Hudson 6, Schindler 6, Lowe 6; Mooy 8, Hogg 6; van La Parra 7, Palmer 8 (Whitehead 86, -), Kachunga 8 (Bunn 81, -); Wells 7 (Hefele 90+1, -)

Subs not used: Scannell, Coleman, Cranie, Payne

Goals: Palmer 14 (assisted van La Parra), Kachunga 62 (assisted Smith)

Bookings: Hogg 21 (unsporting), Hudson 44 (foul)

QPR: Smithies 6; Onuoha 4, Caulker 5, Hall 5, Bidwell 4; Henry 4 (Borysiuk 46, 6), Luongo 4; Cousins 5, Chery 5, Shodipo 5 (Sylla 73, 7); Washington 4 (Polter 46, 6)

Subs not used: Lynch, Ingram, Wszolek, El Khayati

Goals: Sylla 76 (assisted Chery)

Bookings: Chery 21 (unsporting), Polter 87 (repetitive fouling), Borysiuk 90+1 (foul), Sylla 90+3 (Unsporting)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 6 Decent, if a little fussy. The booking for Sylla in injury time for trying to get the ball off Dean Whitehead and stop him running off downfield with it to waste time was a joke, particularly as Whitehead escaped punishment.

QPR 2 Middlesbrough 3, Friday April 1, 2016, Championship

The hosts took the initiative following conceding the opening goal, and after a period of semi-sustained pressure, were rewarded with a fine equaliser ten minutes later. Middlesbrough failed to deal with a Faurlin ball into the box, and it fell to Mackie, back to goal on the edge of the box, who instinctively swivelled and thumped it goalwards with his left foot. The ball crashed down off the bar, and clearly over the line before bouncing back out again. Luckily the far side linesman had kept up with play enough to confirm to the referee, and the goal was eventually given.

QPR were showing signs of getting back into the game when the main talking point happened. Chery had previously flashed wide a volley from a lovely Polter knockdown, but on 70 minutes a lofted ball down the right from Henry was chased down, and right on the byline Hoilett centred the ball for Polter to tap in for a birthday goal from six yards. The referee had already blown for a goal kick before Polter had finished, but this was on instruction from a linesman that was nowhere near the play, and absolutely could not have seen that it was over the line and out, which it absolutely wasn’t. A goal incorrectly chalked off, and Hoilett ended up disappearing into the camera pit for his troubles.

QPR: Smithies 7; Onuoha 5, Angella 5, Hall 5, Perch 7; Faurlin 5 (Washington 79 6), Henry 7; Phillips 5 (Hoilett 62, 6), Chery 7, Mackie 7 (El Khayati 69 6); Polter 6

Subs not used: Ingram, Luongo, Petrasso, Robinson

Goals: Mackie 31 (Unassisted), Chery 86 (assisted Polter)

Bookings: Perch 77 (foul)

Middlesbrough: Konstantopoulos 6; Nsue 7, Kalas 6, Gibson 6, Friend 7; Clayton 7, Leadbitter 7, Adomah 8, Ramirez 7 (Forshaw 67, 6), Downing 6 (Ayala 84, 6); Rhodes 6 (Nugent 78, 6)

Subs not used: de Laet, De Pena, de Sart, Agazzi

Goals: Rhodes 18 (Assisted Leadbitter), Ramirez 51 (Assisted Leadbitter), Gibson 57 (Assisted Leadbitter)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 7 Got the penalty decision right, but was let down by the linesman for the Polter ‘goal’. Kept his cards in his pocket, let the game flow and was largely anonymous throughout, which is what you want from a referee in general.

Brentford 1 QPR 0, Friday October 30, 2015, Championship

Hill, and particularly Hall, had a superb first half together here. QPR defended deep and narrow, funneling play in towards their centre halves who lapped the challenge up. No confrontation too physical, no header too high, no tackle missed. Hill lasted only 20 minutes before he was yellow carded after a set to with Alan McCormack — referee Simon Hooper could easily have left it with a word on the run for both players but it showed a bit of backbone and needle that QPR have often been found lacking in these fixtures. Rangers weren’t coming here to roll over, they were coming to stand their ground, and stand it they did.

Brentford spent much of the second half time wasting. James Tarkowski checking the pressure of the ball before the goal kicks was something referee Simon Hooper probably should have done more than simply laugh along with, for instance. The lobotomised Uncle Fester look-a-like in the main stand holding onto the ball, baiting the QPR players and, shamelessly, delivering a volley of abuse into Clint Hill’s face as he was helped from the field in the second half injured should have been dealt with by the steward sitting directly in front of him. Hill seemed in a lot of pain, and it looked as though the physio was testing for knee ligament injuries — we await those results with bated breath.

Brentford: Button 6; Yennaris 6, Dean 7, Tarkowski 6, Bidwell 6; McCormack 6 (Vibe 82, -), Diagouraga 7; Woods 6, Swift 6, Judge 7 (Kerschbaumer 77, 6); Djuricin 7 (Hoffman 90, -)

Subs not used: Bonham, O’Connell, Gogia, Canos

Goals: Djuricin 56 (assisted Judge)

Bookings: McCormack 20 (ungentlemanly), Djuricin 86 (time wasting)

QPR: Green 6; Onuoha 5, Hall 7, Hill 6 (Perch 76, 6), Konchesky 5; Henry 6, Tozser 5; Phillips 5, Luongo 6 (Hoilett 67, 5), Chery 5 (Austin 63, 5), Emmanuel Thomas 4

Subs not used: Doughty, Faurlin, Smithies, Polter

Booked: Hill 20 (ungentlemanly), Tozser 24 (foul), Phillips 80 (foul)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshere) 7 Not a lot to referee, which says a lot for how meek QPR are on these derby occasions. Over the top to book Hill and McCormack for their early clash, and failed miserably to clamp down on the time wasting that went on in the second half from the home players and fans, but otherwise not bad at all.

QPR 2 Cardiff City 2, Saturday August 15, 2015, Championship

Cardiff’s reserve goalkeeper Simon Moore, in for the suspended David Marshall and fresh from an Ademole Bankole against Fulham on day one, did well to adjust his body in mid air and keep out Matt Phillips’ deflected drive. His reward was scant — from the resulting corner Clint Hill punched the ball towards goal with his fist and Charlie Austin nudged it over the line with his forearm. Hooper looked at the incident and awarded the goal.

QPR surrounded referee Simon Hooper and had very good cause to believe there had been a foul on Michael Doughty in the build-up. But they had only themselves to blame - not only had they lacked the brains to hold onto a two goal lead, but they’d missed a gilt edged chance to make it 3-1 second earlier when Emmanuel-Thomas somehow rolled a sitter wide after being played through by Polter.

QPR: Green 5; Perch 5, Onuoha 7, Hill 6, Konchesky 5; Luongo 7, Henry 5; Phillips 6, Chery 7 (Doughty 55, 6), Gladwin 5 (Emmanuel-Thomas 76, 5); Austin 6 (Polter 68, 6)

Subs not used: Hall, Kpekawa, Faurlin, Lumley

Goals: Hill 33 (assisted Phillips), Austin 56 (assisted Phillips/Hill)

Cardiff: Moore 7; Peltier 5, Connolly 5, Morrison 6, Malone 7; Pilkington 6 (Ameobi 82, -), Dikgacoi 5 (Noone 68, 6), Whittingham 6, Ralls 7; Mason 8, Revell 5 (Jones 59, 7)

Subs not used: Fabio, Doyle, Gunnarsson, Wilson

Goals: Morrison 64 (assisted Whittingham), Malone 90 (assisted Ralls)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 5 Three poor decisions in the game, two in favour of QPR. The second goal should have been disallowed for handball, Rob Green could have been sampling the early bath water for handling outside his area, and Rangers should have had a free kick in the build up to the Cardiff equaliser. Not a good start to the season for the Premier League’s newest referee who last weekend incorrectly disallowed a Cameron Jerome goal at Norwich v Palace.

QPR 1 Wigan 0, Tuesday March 25, 2014, Championship

But as the game wore on his frustration grew. Referee Simon Hooper, superb on his last visit here for the game against Huddersfield, followed a very decent first half display with a mad half hour in the second that turned Morrison from QPR’s chief attacking threat into a red card waiting to happen. First there was a nasty tackle from McClean on Carroll that should have brought a yellow card but didn’t, then there was an obvious foul on Morrison on the edge of the Wigan area that didn’t even bring a free kick. When Powell was then awarded a free kick when he’d appeared to dive under challenge from Barton, and then a promising looking counter attack from Benayoun was hauled all the way back for a QPR free kick they didn’t want, so McArthur could be booked, frustration was audible and Morrison let the situation get the better of him.

Morrison got his inevitable yellow for a robust foul on Gomez with four left to play.
The extra space afforded Maynard his injury time opportunity, but Green was equal to that and everything else the Latics threw at him and the Loft End sang the goalkeeper’s name when full time finally did arrive after a torturous four added minutes.

QPR: Green 8; Hughes 6, Onuoha 7, Dunne 6, Hill 6; Carroll 7, Barton 6; Kranjcar 5 (O’Neil 45, 6), Morrison 6, Benayoun 7; Zamora 6

Subs not used: Simpson, Keane, Hoilett, Murphy

Goals: Benayoun 16 (assisted Carroll/Hill)

Red Cards: Benayoun 90+1 (two bookings — one match ban)

Bookings: Benayoun 81 (kicking ball away), Morrison 86 (foul), Benayoun 90+1 (foul)

Wigan: Al-Habsi 6; Crainey 6 (Beausejour 61, 6), Ramis 7, Rogne 6 (Gomez 73, 6), Kiernan 6; Perch 6, McEachran 6 (Maynard 80, 5), McArthur 7, Collison 6; McClean 7, Powell 7

Subs not used: Carson, Caldwell, Fortune, Waghorn

Bookings: McArthur 71 (foul)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 6 A really excellent first half, as we’re coming to expect from this referee, gave way to an awkward second where he struggled to keep hold of things at times. Ravel Morrison’s behaviour in the second period was poor, but the frustration stemmed from not being awarded a couple of early free kicks for definite fouls — clearly the referee was sick of hearing the cry of wolf from a player who does go down too easily. I thought McClean should have been booked for his foul on Carroll, particularly when you see the incident with Benayoun’s second yellow. Overall not too bad, but a bit of a wild 20 minute spell in the second half.

QPR 2 Huddersfield Town 1, Saturday January 18, 2014, Championship

On several occasions Rangers were forced to commit cynical fouls to bring threatening counter attacks to a close. Murray Wallace struck a powerful free kick straight into Andy Johnson’s face on the end of the wall after Clint Hill felled Ward on the edge of the area. Then Gary O’Neil chopped down Paul Dixon on the other side of the area with the time barely into double figures and Oliver Norwood took a turn with a direct shot that flew through the wall and was well saved by Rob Green. Later, in three minutes of first half stoppage time, Hill was rightly yellow carded by referee Simon Hooper for hauling down Hammill 20 yards from goal and Paul Dixon had a shot blocked away. And with only four minutes left for play Carroll himself was booked for a deliberate trip on Huddersfield substitute Sean Scannell as he threatened to race away into space hunting a late equaliser.

Johnson’s yellow card on the stroke of half time for a wild challenge on Adam Clayton summed up the frustration and — yet again — surgery was required on the QPR side at half time, with Matt Phillips introduced to offer an outlet wide right, and Gary O’Neil withdrawn after another ineffective display. Copying and pasting from previous weeks, it is a concern that Harry Redknapp is being required to raid his bench so early in games, so often.

QPR: Green 7; Simpson 7, Dunne 6, Hill 6, Assou-Ekotto 7; Kranjcar 6, Carroll 5, Henry 6, O’Neil 5 (Phillips 45, 7); Johnson 6 (Traore 81, 7), Austin 7

Subs not used: Wright-Phillips, Onuoha, Diakite, Zamora , Murphy

Goals: Austin 55 (assisted Johnson), 79 (assisted Assou-Ekotto)

Bookings: Johnson 43 (foul), Hill 45+2 (foul), Carroll 86 (foul)

Huddersfield: Smithies 6; Wallace 6, Gerrard 6, Smith 6; Dixon 6, Hogg 7, Clayton 7, Norwood 6 (Scannell 67, 7), Hammill 7 (Gobern 78, 6); Ward 5 ( Vaughan 51, 6) Wells 7

Subs not used: Woods, Bennett, Lolley, Holmes

Goals: Wells 68 (assisted Hammill)

Referee — Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 9 No complaints with any of the bookings, allowed the game to flow well and stayed well out of the way. Easy to see why he’s so highly rated at the moment, and probably destined for the Premier League next season

Swansea 0 QPR 0, Tuesday October 19, 2010, Championship

The game became rather bad tempered thereafter. Kapsars Gorkss picked up the first yellow card for cracking a shot in on goal after the whistle had been blown — harsh, but in fairness to referee Simon Hooper he had let Alejandro Faurlin off with the same thing a minute or so earlier and warned both the Argentinean and Taarabt the captain. QPR were clearly motivated by a desire to prevent Swansea taking quick free kicks, which they did religiously, while players were out of position. Gary Monk quickly levelled the card count for a crude tackle from behind on Adel Taarabt just as he was in full flight approaching the Swansea penalty area.

Grumpy, sulky and feeling wronged Taarabt stomped around for 30 seconds like a spoilt two year old before, wouldn’t you just know it, Allen collected the ball right on the touchline in front of him. Like a council house on Merseyside housing a pit bull and a three year old — disaster was inevitable. Taarabt needlessly launched himself into an eye watering lunge that left Allen writhing in agony on the ground and the Swansea players and bench piling in to surround the referee and QPR player. It took a long time for the fuss to die down, and Keith Curle and Shaun Derry certainly did more than their fair share of work in keeping a crowd of Swansea players out of the referee’s face and away from Taarabt. As he had done all evening Mr Hooper refereed sensibly — calming the situation and then doing everything in his power to keep 22 men on the pitch. Taarabt was booked (as was Angel Rangel who voiced his complaints too vehemently) and immediately replaced by Smith. To be honest, I thought he should have been sent off.

Swansea: De Vries 7, Williams 7, Tate 8, Monk 7, Rangel 7, Cotterill 6 (Allen 46, 8), Pratley 7, Orlandi 7 (Beattie 85, -), Dyer 5, Sinclair 6, Dobbie 7 (Nouble 65, 4)

Subs Not Used: Taylor , Serran, Ma-Kalambay, Emnes

Booked: Monk (foul), Tate (foul), Pratley (foul), Rangel (dissent)

QPR: Kenny 8, Walker 7, Gorkss 7, Connolly 8, Hill 6, Derry 7, Faurlin 7, Ephraim 5 (Clarke 88, -), Taarabt 7 (Smith 80, 7),Helguson 6 (Agyemang 80, 6), Mackie 6

Subs Not Used: Orr, Cerny, Hall, Mahon

Booked: Gorkss (kicking ball away), Faurlin (foul), Taarabt (foul)

Referee: Simon Hooper (Wiltshire) 7 Not an easy game for an inexperienced official, but one I thought he handled well. Of the seven bookings only Gorkss could count himself unlucky as he genuinely didn’t seem to hear the whistle, although Faurlin had done the same thing a minute or so earlier and been warned and QPR were clearly wary of quick Swansea free kicks so maybe he knew what he was doing. The rest of the bookings were correct, as was the penalty decision although the linesman did his best to bollocks that one up with mixed signals. Taarabt and Tate could count themselves lucky to stay on the field but overall I liked his sensible, calm approach to what was a very physical game and it is to his credit that it finished 11 a side.

Stats

Almost exclusively Premier League these days Hooper, with 17 appointments and this only his fourth down in the Championship. He’s shown 79 yellows and two reds in that time, topped out by the highly controversial 10 yellows and two reds at Spurs 2-1 Liverpool when VAR’s terrible twosome Darren England and Michael Salisbury basically blew the whole match up for the guy on the field. One of his three Championship matches so far did involve Watford – he had their comeback from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at home to Norwich before Christmas.

Last season he finished with 111 yellows and one red from 32 games and ended the campaign with a Championship play-off semi-final between Luton and Sunderland. When Watford were last in the Prem, in 2021/22, they had Hooper for three games in which they lost each time – 1-0 at Leeds, 3-1 at home to Man City and 2-1 against Brentford at Vicarage Road.

QPR are 5-4-8 from 17 games with this official, Watford are 6-3-6 from 15.

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