Donohue will blow the final final whistle

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We’ve reached the final game of the season against Cardiff City and the referee who will blow that final whistle is Matt Donohue who will be in charge of a Burnley game for the second time this season.

A schoolteacher from Denton, Manchester, Donohue hails from Southend but moved up to the North West initially to university and stayed in the area. He took up refereeing and progressed onto the National List in 2018/19 and a year later won promotion to Select Group 2. His first match at Championship level was between Hull and Reading in August 2019, a game won 2-1 by Hull. His first Championship red card came in October of that year when he dismissed West Brom’s Nathan Ferguson in a 2-2 home draw against Charlton.

Embed from Getty ImagesHis only previous Burnley game came in February when he was in charge of our 4-0 home win against Huddersfield. While refereeing an easy match well, he was another referee who struggled with his time keeping. In a second half that included one goal, six substitutions plus a five and a half minute stoppage when Ian Maatsen was stretchered off, he added just four minutes at the end.

This season he’s refereed a total of 34 games with 29 of them in the Championship, one in each of the two lower divisions and three in the FA Cup. There have been a total of 134 yellow and three red cards in those games. Of the yellows, 58 have gone to home team players and 76 to away team players.

The first of the three red cards saw Sheffield United’s John Egan sent off in their 3-1 Boxing Day home win against Coventry. The second of them was Cardiff goalkeeper Ryan Allsop for handling the ball outside the box, leaving Cardiff to play the closing minutes with Perry Ng in goal in a game they won 3-0. Preston’s Bambo Diaby was the last to see Donohue’s red card when he was dismissed in their 4-0 defeat at Middlesbrough.

He’s been very busy with his cards recently; there have been 36 yellows and that one red at Middlesbrough in his last six games. The most recent of them was last weekend when Millwall won 3-2 at Blackpool to condemn the home side to relegation. Blackpool had Lewis Fiorini and Morgan Rogers yellow carded and all of Jake Cooper, George Saville, Tom Bradshaw and Zian Flemming were the Millwall players to join them.

The fourth official tomorrow is Ollie Yates. He’s been a Football League referee since the start of the 2015/16 season but he hasn’t refereed a Burnley game and he still awaits a first game in the Championship.

Match Officials

Referee: Matt Donohue
Assistant Referees: Paul Hodskinson & Mark Pottage
Fourth Official: Ollie Yates

Previous Burnley Game – Matt Donohue

Season	Opponents	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley Players Carded
2022/23	Huddersfield	h	4-0	2	0

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