Meet The Ref - Latics v Port Vale

Latics face Port Vale at the DW Stadium in the latest round of games in their EFL group, a victory tonight would see us progress through to the next stage.

 

In charge of the game, making his first Latics appearance and for that matter, his first Port Vale game is West Riding referee Sam Barrott.

 

This is Barrott’s first season on the National List of referees having spent last campaign taking charge of games in the 5^th tier, the National League.

 

Barrott became a referee due to an injury playing football for Halifax Town Youth Team, his injury left him unable to do contact sport for 9 months. His granddad advised him to take the referee’s course whilst he was out injured and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

 Barrott cites both Bobby and Andy Madley as his role models.

 

Sam Barrott Card Watch 2012/21

Games – 3

Yellows – 7

Reds – 0

 

Wigan Athletic v Port Vale

EFL Trophy    
Referee - Sam Barrott
Assistants - Andrew Hendley & Chris Husband
Fourth Official - David Richardson

 

Today Is Match Day

 

Today is match day, there I said it without any precursor, pure and simple, today is match day. For the first time since July 1^st my attention is completely, totally and utterly focused on a game of football.

 

The frets, tears, despair, helplessness, anger, frustration, confusion, bitterness and outright desolation that have blighted my everyday throughout this administration have gone and been replaced with a sense of relief.

 

I would not have believed that I could have gone through such a dark period; I knew I loved, and I mean loved, our football club, but come on, it’s just a football club, isn’t it?

 

I now realise, without any doubt, just how much the club is a part of my life. The pain I felt watching us, as I believed, slowly die was unbearable. I know I was not alone with these feelings, many of our Latics community have spoken with me about how they’ve also felt the pain and anguish, I’ve also read it on social media and in published articles, I have heard it in interviews and seen it through the various campaigns. We have all been affected by this, but now there is light, hope of a new dawn and a way forward to a positive new beginning.

 

So we can look forward to a game this afternoon, watching our lads, play for our club, win, lose or draw I will enjoy it because at last, enjoying a game of football is all that matters.

 

A couple of light, match day articles in the links below, have a read and let the stresses of the past three months float away.

 

Meet The Ref - Carl Boyeson 

 

Any Previous? Latics v Donny 

 

Also if you’ve got time (1 hr) why not grab a listen to the latest PWU Latics podcast, Supporters Club chief Caroline Molyneux joined us for a chat, makes for an interesting listen.

 

Also the lads over at The Pie At Night have a podcast out, lots for us fans to get ourselves in the mood for the Donny game with.

 

Enjoy 

 

 

Any Previous? Wigan Athletic v Doncaster Rovers

Doncaster Rovers are the visitors to the DW Stadium this Saturday as the Latics look to build on an excellent first league win of the season away at Portsmouth last weekend.

 

Down the years we have had more than one classic encounter with Donny, our first ever meeting back in 1965 came in the 1^st round of the FA Cup, a 2-2 draw over at Belle Vue saw the South Yorkshire men brought back to Springfield Park for a Wednesday afternoon replay.

 

Despite the game being played during ‘office hours’ a crowd of 7,113 witnessed a typical Harry Lyon performance, stretchered off in the first half with damaged ankle ligaments, the Latics number 9, following a tot of whisky, a woodbine and a hefty amount of strapping returned to the field of play and fired home a hat-trick to see the Latics through 3-1 and into the 2nd round.

 

The last meeting between the two clubs was also very memorable, the last game of the 2017/18 season, Will Grigg’s 2^nd half goal enough to beat Doncaster and ensure that the Latics were crowned League 1 Champions for the 2^nd time in three years.

 

 

Previous Encounters

Played - 35

Won - 14

Drawn - 10

Lost - 11

 

 

Last Six

Competition	Date	Result
League 1	05 May 2018	Doncaster 0:1 Latics
League 1	21 Nov 2017	Latics 3:0 Doncaster
League 1	16 Apr 2016	Doncaster 3:1 Latic
League 1	16 Aug 2015	Latics 0:0 Doncaster
Championship	18 Jan 2014	Doncaster 3:0 Latics
Championship	20 Aug 2013	Latics 2:2 Doncaster

Meet The Ref - Latics v Doncaster Rovers

Latics face high flying Doncaster Rovers at the DW Stadium on Saturday, the ‘man in the middle’ is East Yorkshire based ref Carl Boyeson who will be in charge of his first Latics game for 3 years.

 

The 49 year old’s last Latics game, ironically enough, was at the DW Stadium in a League 1 encounter with Doncaster Rovers back on 21^st November 2017, the score that day, 3-0 to the Latics.

 

Boyeson began refereeing at the age of 22 when his best mate gave him some sound advice, Boyeson says - ‘He told me that I was never going to be a pro footballer so why not referee pro football instead.

 

“So that’s what I set out to do. I’ve been on the National List of referees since 2002 .”

 

Having been on the Football League list for the past two decades, Boyeson recently completed a milestone in his refereeing career, having officiated in over 500 EFL games, speaking about this achievement he commented – “Looking back it seems unreal that I have covered this amount of EFL games as a Referee and I'm going into my 18th season in the middle.

 

“Obviously, I am proud to have reached this milestone and now I will push on to 550 games and beyond. In total I have covered 567 games including FA Cup, EFL Cup and EFL Trophy, also not forgetting I was an Assistant Referee for 6 years on both The EFL and FA Premier League and these games are not included in these totals.” 

 

So far this campaign Carl Boyeson has taken charge of three games, the EFL Cup tie between Oldham and Carlisle, Football League Trophy game between Sunderland and Aston Villa U21s and the League 2 clash between Tranmere and Cheltenham.

 

Carl Boyeson Card Watch 2020/21

Games – 3

Yellows – 11

Reds – 0

 

Wigan Athletic v Doncaster Rovers
Referee- Carl Boyeson
Assistants – Mark Cunliffe & Richard Woodward
Fourth Official - Conor Brown