Shoebridge to Referee at Accrington

Rob Shoebridge from Derbyshire is set to take charge of Wednesday's League Two game between Accrington Stanley and Hereford United.

The last time the Bulls met Shoebridge was at Oldham on a Sunday afternoon in October 2008. As well as losing the game 4-0, the Bulls had Stephen O'Leary sent off.

The BN match reporter wasn't very happy with the refereeing that afternoon.

Then, on fifteen minutes came the first of two penalty errors by referee Shoebridge. As the ball was lofted over the Bulls defence, Hughes and N'Gotty chased it towards the bye-line. Hughes appeared to get a touch to the ball deflecting it away from the goal but instead of following the ball he leant into N'Gotty before collapsing to the ground. The reaction of most reasonable football fans would have been "nice try Lee...but the Ref won't buy that one". He did and awarded the softest penalty I've witnessed in fifty years of watching football.

Then in the second half:

To add insult to the injury of his earlier penalty misdemeanours, Referee Shoebridge then conspired to produce two cards in as many minutes to Hereford's hardworking midfielder, Stephen O’Leary. Both challenges looked fairly innocuous but the second appeared to draw a straight red from the stage-struck official.

To date this season Shoebridge has been in charge of 27 games in which he has given out 55 yellow and 3 red cards.

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