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A Championship game on a Thursday night?! Unfortunately we aren’t here to moan about money/sponsorship in football, but instead about something else we fans love to hate – the referees (the clue is sort of in the name of this series). In the spotlight on this occasion is Andrew Madley, the older, yet less famous brother of Premier League official Bobby.
But there’s been enough sibling rivalry in football over the last few days with the whole Neville brothers at Valencia saga, so I’ll stick just to Andy and his exploits this season. The West Yorkshireman has taken charge of 21 games so far in 2015-16, handing out 69 yellow cards and three red cards in the process. He has also awarded three penalties.
One of those spot-kicks came in his most recent game overseeing Reading, as the Royals beat Brentford 3-1, with Nick Blackman scoring the aforementioned penalty. In total, Madley has been the man in the middle for a previous five Reading fixtures, which have ended in victory twice, defeat twice with one draw as well. This will however be only his second trip to the Madjeski Stadium.
The assistant referees for Thursday’s game will be Adrian Tranter and Adam Matthews, whilst Andy Haines will take charge of the fourth official duties. That’s a quadruple ‘A’ refereeing team.