Premiership referee in charge of City clash
Thursday, 21st Oct 2010 23:06 by Clive Whittingham

Elite list official Lee Mason is the man in charge of the televised Friday night match between Bristol City and QPR.

Referee >>> Lee Mason (Lancashire) Premiership official who joined the list in 2002 and refereed QPR’s memorable 1-0 win at Aston Villa in the League Cup two seasons ago.

Assistants >>> Jake Collin (Liverpool) Phil Sharp (Hertfordshire) ran the line in the 2002 World Cup final between Germany and Brazil.

Fourth Official >>> Phil Gibbs (West Midlands) refereed this fixture, and QPR’s 5-1 home defeat by Middlesbrough, last season.

Previously

Aston Villa 0 QPR 1, Wednesday September 24, 2008

Despite starting the second period poorly and being under pressure for almost the entire first 15 minutes QPR took a shock lead with their first attack of the half. Cometh the hour cometh Damion Stewart. Rangers owed a debt of gratitude first of all to referee Lee Mason who awarded a corner on the left flank when it was clearly a goal kick after coming off Buzsaky last. Normally in those circumstances the referee immediately blows up for a free kick to the defensive side but with little contact inside the area Guzan was able to get a firm punch away and Mason kept quiet. The ball ran across to Daniel Parejo wide on the QPR right and he whipped in a glorious cross which was gobbled up enthusiastically by Stewart at the near post after he’d remained forward following the corner. The Big Jamaican’s third of the season headed with such velocity it nearly ripped the net off the back of the posts.

Rangers also had cause to worry about the referee. I’m always wary of Premiership officials refereeing Premiership teams in situations like this because as soon as the lower league side takes the lead all the decisions start going the way of the big clubs and sure enough, probably with the incorrect decision to award QPR a corner for the goal still fresh in his mind, Mason started to award one questionable free kick after another to the home side. The most farcical saw Di Carmine, introduced for Agyemang with 25 minutes to go, chase Zat Knight down to his own byline and then watch perplexed as the big man fell over under no contact whatsoever and picked the ball up on his way down only to be awarded a free kick himself. Ledesma was harshly penalised for a foul that looked like a good tackle and Delaney was booked for a poor lunge on Craig Gardner - Villa quickly followed this up with bookings of their own for Gardner and Cuellar as frustration started to set in.

Parejo stung the keeper’s hands with a low drive eight minutes from time but QPR’s attacking ambition was becoming more and more limited with each passing minute and whenever they did venture into the Villa half Mason immediately whistled against them and the ball came flying back over their heads.

Aston Villa: Guzan 6, Gardner 6, Cuellar 6, Knight 5, Shorey 6, Osbourne 5 (Routledge 67, 5), Petrov 5, Barry 5, Ashley Young 7, Harewood 4 (Agbonlahor 67, 6), Carew 7

Subs Not Used: Friedel, Delfouneso, Davies, Salifou, Reo-Coker

Booked: Cuellar (foul) Gardner (foul)

QPR: Cerny 7, Connolly 7, Hall 8, Stewart 9, Delaney 5, Mahon 7, Rowlands 8, Parejo 8, Ledesma 8 (Balanta 90, -), Buzsaky 7 (Leigertwood 81, -), Agyemang 6 (Di Carmine 66, 6)

Subs Not Used: Camp, Blackstock, Gorkss, Ephraim

Booked: Delaney (foul)

Goals: Stewart 58 (assisted Parejo)

Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire) 4 Not too bad at all for the first hour but after getting the corner decision so badly wrong in the lead up to the goal he then seemed desperate to even things up. Some strange decisions given from that point on reaffirming my dislike for Premiership refs when Premiership teams are losing to sides from lower divisions. Look after your own and all that, he certainly did his best for them in the last half hour.

Leicester 1 QPR 1, Saturday September 15, 2007

A quarter of an hour in Campbell did put the ball in the net but the referee and linesman both quickly signalled that an infringement had taken place and the goal was ruled out. From my seat at the opposite end of the ground it looked to me like Campbell had punched the ball in Devon White style but others around me felt that a foul on Camp had taken place. Either way the goal was disallowed and there were few complaints from the home side.

It took fully 20 minutes for QPR's long ball game to yield any kind of result. Finally one of the punts dropped around the penalty area and Blackstock was able to knock it back to Rowlands who volleyed over under pressure. Blackstock was clearly growing frustrated again as the half wore on and that only increased when he chased Bruno N'Gotty down to the corner flag and successfully robbed him of possession only for referee Lee Mason to award a generous free kick in the home team's favour.

Three minutes later though the inevitable Leicester goal arrived. Mikele Leigertwood gave the ball away in a poor area and then Damion Stewart foolishly left his foot in on Campbell after Leicester worked the ball into the penalty area. Mason quickly pointed to the spot. It was maybe a little soft, and Campbell certainly went over very easily, but he was heading away from the goal and offering little threat to QPR so Stewart should have left him well alone. The ever impressive Iain Hume stepped up and sent Camp the wrong way.

Rangers got a let off from the officials soon after though when Hume crossed for Cort to finally find the target with a header but a late flag from the linesman ruled the goal out.

Leicester: Fulop 7, N'Gotty 6, Kisnorbo 8, McAuley 7, Sheehan 7, Hume 8, Clemence 7, Wesolowski 7, Porter 8 (Kishishev 78, 5), Campbell 7 (Chambers 73, 5), Cort 5 (De Vries 90, -)

Subs Not Used: Henderson, Newton

Booked: McAuley (foul)

Goals: Hume 63 pen (assisted Campbell)

QPR: Camp 7, Cullip 8, Stewart 6, Rehman 5, Barker 5, Rowlands 5, Leigertwood 6, Bolder 5 (Ephraim 72, 8), Moore 3, Blackstock 6, Sahar 5 (Nardiello 46, 7)

Subs Not Used: Cole, Bignot, Curtis

Booked: Leigertwood (foul)

Goals: Leigertwood 82 (assisted Rowlands)

Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire) 7 Well refereed with only a couple of cards. The penalty looked pretty blatant to me at the time and I'd certainly have been furious if we'd been denied a spot kick in similar circumstances.

West Brom 3 QPR 3, Tuesday October 31, 2006

With the two minutes of allotted stoppage time played referee Lee Mason allowed QPR to go ahead with their first corner kick of the night. The delivery from Cook was poor but the ball was cleared back out to him and he didn't need asking a second time. A beautiful curling ball to the back post isolated the home defence and Damion Stewart had the simple task of poking the ball home from three yards out.

Lee Mason didn't help their cause when they finally got Cook running towards the goal in a three on three only to be pulled right back to the halfway line for a free kick. Obviously Mr Mason, who remember bought that shocking dive from Gavin Williams and awarded a penalty to Ipswich at Loftus Road in August, wouldn't know the advantage rule if it wandered up and stole his wallet.

In the end that decision played into QPR's hands because, clearly embarrassed and apologetic to any QPR player that would listen, Mason quickly awarded a free kick for absolutely nothing right on the edge of the box right of centre. Lee Cook took the set piece - he feigned to chip it to the back post and then sent a curling effort an inch wide of the top corner with the keeper beaten.

WBA: Zuberbuhler 5, Watson 6, Perry 5, Davies 4, Greening 8, Ellington 7 (Phillips 72, 7), Gera 8, Albrechtsen 8, Kamara 9, Koumas 8, Wallwork 7 (Hartson 85, -)

Subs not used: Chaplow, McShane, Hoult

Scorers: Ellington 8, Kamara 40, Kamara 54

Rangers: Royce 8, Bignot 7, Rehman 4, Gallen 6, Ainsworth 5, Lomas 6, Cook 7, Stewart 7, Blackstock 6 (Nygaard 62, 6), Smith 6, Mancienne 6

Subs not used: Milanese, Ward, Rowlands, Jones

Bookings: Smith, Lomas, Bignot

Scorers: Stewart 45, Gallen 47, Nygaard 77

Referee: Lee Mason 5 (Lancashire) Did a half decent job overall but there were four terrible decisions in the second half that really stuck out. Lomas and Gallen were both penalised for winning the ball, Lee Cook was denied a run on goal by his lack of advantage rule knowledge and then to make up for that he gave QPR a free kick on the edge of the area for nothing. Also booked Jimmy Smith very harshly. Ably assisted by the young linesman from the Colchester game - there's always lots of very bizarre flag waving when he's around and last night was no exception, much to the home fans' disgust!

Prior to that Mason refereed a 3-1 home defeat by Ipswich in Gary Waddock’s time in charge that featured no cards, but a very debatable penalty being awarded to the Tractor Boys. He was also in charge for a 2-1 defeat at the City Ground against Nottingham Forest in 2004 and a 3-3 draw at Rushden and Diamonds when Gareth Ainsworth scored one of the QPR goals of all time and a staggering eight yellow cards were shown. Mason angered Neil Warnock last season when he failed to act against Jody Craddock who appeared to elbow Alan Lee and cause a deep cut to his head in an FA Cup replay between Palace and Wolves. Palace won 3-1 thanks to an unlikely hat trick from Danny Butterfield.

Stats

So far this season Mason has refereed seven games – five in the Premiership and two in the Championship. He has shown a whopping 30 yellow cards and two reds in those fixtures – a high average of 4.28 a game. He showed seven yellow cards last time out as Villa drew 0-0 with Chelsea, his highest total in a single match so far. So far in the Championship he has been chosen for two high profile games – showing four yellows and awarding the home team a penalty when Doncaster hosted Hull, and handing out three yellows and a red as Cardiff beat Millwall 2-1.

Last season he showed 106 yellows (3.02 a game) and seven reds in 35 games, the majority of which came in the Premiership. His highest total in a single match was seven yellows and a red in a bad tempered game between Birmingham and West Ham.