Well actually, if you pardon me, he's not that 'fresh'...the Cheshire chappie is 50. But in terms of not having taken charge of a Reading match in the 2013/2014 season, unlike serial-offending colleagues Coote, Scott and Hill, then yes, he is fresh.
Now, the very slim proportion of The Tilehurst End readers who are diehard Inverurie Loco Works fans are probably by now ITCHING to ask ''What on earth is our Inverurie Loco Works 21-year-old Scottish goalkeeper, Scott Mathieson, doing officiating in the Sky Bet Championship this weekend?'', or words to that effect. Well, the simple answer is, he's not - the two men share the same name.
Mathieson has kept a total of 23 games ticking over this season, 7 of those being Championship fixtures. If anything, he's enjoyed a fairly non-controversial season, showing a sizeable-but-not-superhuman 65 yellows (averaging out at roughly 2.8 per match), and only 3 reds. In addition, the only spectacular scoreline he has been privy to was Fleetwood's 5-4 League Two win over Mansfield in November.
The sole Championship penalty Mathieson has awarded this term came in the 84th minute of Huddersfield vs Blackpool at the end of September: Terriers striker James Vaughan, having equalised for Huddersfield half an hour earlier, missed the penalty and ultimately the chance to win the game, and so the match ended 1 goal apiece. The game also contained 1 of the 2 Championship red cards Scott has flourished this season, with Blackpool's Angel Martinez shown a second yellow in the build-up to the above penalty.
The second of these two reds arrived in Mathieson's most recent Championship encounter (Blackpool vs Leeds on Boxing Day), and as if luck would have it, ANOTHER Blackpool player was given his marching orders: right-back Kirk Broadfoot, right at the death. In fact, the match was an almost carbon-copy of Huddersfield vs Blackpool, with both games similarly ending 1-1 and with both sets of goals scored at almost the exactly same times in the contest. Coupled with the two dismissed Blackpool players (again, both within the final 10 minutes), and that really is pretty freaky indeed.
Ominously, out of the 7 Championship games under his watch, only one has resulted in a win for the home side - QPR's 2-1 opening day victory over Sheffield Wednesday. Let's hope to throw that stat out of the window come Saturday afternoon.