Toner in charge of Sunderland visit – Referee
Occasional Championship official Ben Toner gets the second QPR game of his career this Saturday as the R’s host league leading Sunderland.
Referee >>> Ben Toner (Lancashire)
Assistants >>> Hugh Gilroy (London) and George Byrne (Suffolk)
Fourth Official >>> Sunny Singh Gill (London)
Ashley Barnes, these days so large if he stands still too long he risks someone colonising him and holding elections, collapsed embarrassingly. An afternoon spent entirely harassing novice referee Toner finally rewarded with the most generous of free kicks.
Referee Toner, to this point absolutely fine, seemed to take against Rangers, and Dykes in particular, with a string of bizarre calls. Seven minutes were added and suffered through. Tick following tock following tick following tock. The whole thing was exhausting. Why can’t we just have a nice time?
QPR: Begovic 6; Cannon 6, Cook 6, Clarke-Salter 7, Paal 6; Hayden 8 (Dykes 86, -), Colback 7, Hodge 6 (Andersen 66, 6); Willock 5 (Smyth 66, 6), Armstrong 6 (Frey 66, 7), Chair 7 (Dixon-Bonner 90, -)
Subs not used: Dunne, Archer, Fox, Larkeche
Goals: Colback 27 (unassisted), Frey 77 (assisted Andersen)
Yellow Cards: Chair 79 (foul), Clarke-Salter 87 (foul)
Norwich: Gunn 5; Stacey 6 (Sorensen 68, 4), Hanley 5, Gibson 6, Giannoulis 5 (McCallum 86, -); McLean 8, Sara 7; Fassnacht 5 (Rowe 58, 7), Barnes 5, Sainz 7 (Hernandez 86, -); Sargent 7 (Nunez 68, 5)
Subs not used: Gibbs, Long, van Hooijdonk, Batth
Goals: McLean 48 (assisted Sara), Sargent 62 (assisted Stacey)
Yellow Cards: Gibson 25 (foul), Mclean 52 (foul), Hanley 76 (delaying restart), McCallum 90+7 (foul)
Referee – Ben Toner (Lancashire) 6 Thought he did really well for 75 minutes or so and I had him on a high seven at that stage, but he gave some weird and wonderful stuff in the closing stages of the game and seemed to take against Lyndon Dykes entirely when he came on. This happened with Steve Martin at Carrow Road as well but I’ve absolutely no idea why these referees allow themselves to be pursued around the pitch, harassed and undermined by Ashley Barnes like this. That fat mess would shout in my face like that once, and if he did it again he’d be sampling the early bath water. There’s a Norwich booking for, I think, over celebrating in the wake of the second goal that doesn’t seem to have been picked up in the stats yet, see pic…
