Ward back to referee at Burnley for first time in fifteen years

10/04/2024 12:55 PM

Tomorrow’s home game against Preston will be refereed by experienced official Gavin Ward who will be in charge of a game at Turf Moor for the first time since January 2013 when he was the referee for our 1-0 home win against Crystal Palace.

His only other Burnley game came just over two years ago and our 1-1 draw at West Brom with the two games giving him a RATE THE REF rating of 79.92 out of 100, but it's some time since he first refereed a game in the Football League which was a League Two fixture between Barnet and Hereford in August 2007, claiming his first red card too with the dismissal of Barnet's Joe Devera early in the game.

The 54-year-old from Surrey refereed 28 games last season in which he showed two red cards but he's passed that total already this season with three in seven games along with 24 yellow cards.

Six of the seven games have come in the Championship with one in the League Cup and nine of those yellow cards have gone to home team players with fifteen to away team players. The first two red cards came in the 1-1 draw between QPR and Plymouth at Loftus Road. He sent off Plymouth's Adam Forshaw midway through the first half for two yellow cards within a minute and then left them with nine men when he dismissed Frederick Issaka in stoppage time.

His most recent red card was shown to Sheffield Wednesday's Di'Shon Bernard at Luton with them leading 1-0; they went on to lose the game 2-1. That was for a handball when the ball had clearly connected with Bernard's shoulder. Wednesday appealed but weren't successful.

Ward's most recent game was Cardiff's 1-0 home win against Millwall on Tuesday of this week. Cardiff had Calum Chambers yellow carded along with Jake Cooper, Ryan Leonard and Casper De Norre for Millwall.

The fourth official tomorrow is Daniel Middleton. He's in his second season in the Football League and is still to be allocated a game at Championship level.

Match Officials

Referee: Gavin Ward
Assistant Referees: Lee Venamore & Greg Read
Fourth Official: Daniel Middleton

Previous Burnley Games – Gavin Ward