Simon Hooper - where is Wazzy when you need him?

[GPs Beard 0]

I can''t believe that Wazzy hasn''t started a Ref Watch.

For the record - I thought he still managed to look poor in a game that was breeze. No big decisions. Overweight . Inconsistent with yellows.

Refs association keep trying with him don''t they? Mid table championship game. Still miles away from the Prem .

[hogesar 10,766]

I thought he was poor in terms of decisions for both sides. Neither team got an advantage from him but his decision not to give a yellow when Pinto broke on a counter through the middle of the park and wiped out made no sense when he did give a yellow when Howson done the same on a Birmingham counter.

[GPs Beard 0]

Agree totally Hog. His "game management" in a game that a five year old could have officiated, lead to Howson walking a tightrope , and not any of the Brum players. These things can change a game.

And he fell for the old Snake Pit routine at the corner which was brilliant. He will get slaughtered by the assessor for reacting to the Crowd.

Surprised he didn''t get more stick .

[Lessingham Canary 108]

Going to be a long time, if ever, before he gets to officiate a PL fixture.

[Van wink 2,994]

Pedantic and fat. The snake pit incident was a classic, followed by a shocking delivery of the corner.

Only good thing was when he called one of the blue noses back for a yellow card after he had fouled Cams and the play had progressed.

[morty 0]

Fussy and inconsistent, seen worse.Thats the standard of Championship refs unfortunately.

[Feedthewolf 5,885]

[quote user="hogesar"]I thought he was poor in terms of decisions for both sides. Neither team got an advantage from him but his decision not to give a yellow when Pinto broke on a counter through the middle of the park and wiped out made no sense when he did give a yellow when Howson done the same on a Birmingham counter.[/quote]As a ref you should always be mindful of the effect of ''setting your stall out early'' with cards. After booking Howson early (which was a fair decision), he then left himself open to accusations of inconsistency when he failed to book the Birmingham player for the foul on Pinto. Then Jacob got taken out as he spun past his man on the left wing shortly afterwards, which should have been a yellow too. Finally, Jacob got clattered from behind out on the right touchline close to half time – a sliding tackle from behind that doesn''t get the ball cleanly is an automatic yellow card. He genuinely seems to enjoy controversy, and those types of ref are the worst ones. People like Paul Danson, Graham Barber, Andy D''Urso and Mike Dean (earlier in his career, at least) all had a bit of that about them, and they''re infuriating. The old adage ''the best refs are the ones you don''t know are there'' rings true.

[Woodman 92]

I''m happy to be corrected, but wasn''t the foul on Pinto before the one when Howson was booked?

[Feedthewolf 5,885]

[quote user="Woodman"]I''m happy to be corrected, but wasn''t the foul on Pinto before the one when Howson was booked?[/quote]I stand corrected, I believe you''re right. Even so, cautioning one offence and not the other is inconsistent, especially in a game that was not being played in an overtly physical manner. After cautioning Howson, the two fouls on Murphy should both then have yielded bookings – when you look at those four cautionable offences, and see that the one committed by a Norwich player was punished, and the three committed by Birmingham players were not, this makes it all the more frustrating.

[AJ 1,359]

I miss Wazzy''s ref watch - what ever happened to him?

[The Great Drinkell 51]

Me too AJ. - I would expect he just got fed up of the infantile behaviour of a few on here, and called it a day.

[GPs Beard 0]

Lessingham Canary wrote the following post at 30/01/2017 1:23 PM:

Going to be a long time, if ever, before he gets to officiate a PL fixture.

I don''t think he has ever been on the Prem since his one dreadful day against Palace? If not, that must be some kind of record, one game, demoted , and no sign of getting back on the list?

Lest we forget, here are Mark Halseys comments after the debacle last year.

Hooper, who is not one of the select group of Premier League officials, was taking charge of his first top-flight match and Halsey had warned four days earlier in a blog for KICCA.com that his appointment was asking for trouble.

Halsey said: "Simon Hooper? I just don''t understand that one. I just hope he has a really good game because if he doesn''t there will be an outrage.

"Simon was in charge of the League 2 Play Off final at Wembley in May. You look at that then you look at Andrew Madley who was in charge of the League 1 Play Off final. Andrew is a very good young referee, so why have they not appointed him? They should be promoting him."

He added: "The select group should be picking the best referees week in, week out. The first weekend of the season is not the time to be trialing a Football League referee. By next week he''ll be back in the Football League, this is just a one off game to see how he does.

"They are asking for trouble. Especially after the season we had last season where they got a lot of decisions wrong."

In the end, the game turned on that decision by Hooper, who on the opening day last year sent off and was then pushed by angry Norwich defender Martin Olsson, to disallow Jerome''s acrobatic overhead goal for dangerous play.

Palace were on the fortunate end of a string of decisions by Wiltshire''s Hooper, officiating in his first Premier League game, including a penalty appeal rejected when Conor Wickham pushed over Sebastien Bassong.

[Lessingham Canary 108]

GP''s Beard, exactly my sentiment.