Leigh Doughty is another new referee
Burnley’s last two games, at Shrewsbury and Wigan, have seen officials referee us for the first time, and it’s the same tonight with the visit of Millwall.
Leigh Doughty is from Blackpool and became a National List referee in the Football League three years ago, quickly winning promotion to Select Group 2 a year later.
At this point, Doughty had refereed only in Leagues One and Two, but his performances won him promotion and his first Championship game came at Rotherham in September 2020, a game they lost 1-0 against Rotherham.
He’s rarely refereed in the two lower divisions since but did kick off this season with a League Two game although has since refereed three in the Championship including each of Blackburn’s last two games. In his four games this season, he’s already reached for his cards on 22 occasions to hand out 21 yellow cards and one red card.
The red card was given to Bristol City’s Mark Sykes in their 2-0 home win against Luton and it was Doughty’s performance in this game that angered home boss Nigel Pearson to the extent that he threatened to quit.
Of the yellows, twelve have gone to home team players and nine to away team players. All of Joe Rankin-Costello, Lewis Travis and Ashley Phillips (Blackburn) and Dwight Gayle, Tariqe Fosu-Henry and Lewis Baker (Stoke) were yellow carded in his most recent game.
Andrew Kitchen from Durham is fourth official and, like Doughty, has never refereed a Burnley game.
Match Officials
Referee: Leigh Doughty
Assistant Referees: Paul Hodskinson & Mark Dwyer
Fourth Official: Andrew Kitchen
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