With about 7,000 Tractor Boys fans expected at Stadium MK on Saturday we might just have to look to the ref to play his part and keep them quiet, so step up to the plate Oliver Langford from the West Midlands who may or may not be sporting a beard and a change of hairstyle, as he appears to be having some sort of midlife hair crisis judging by the multiple “looks” I have witnessed when searching for a photo of him, worryingly most of them feature him showing a red card, more about that later.
He has taken charge of 20 games so far this season (Not including the midweek games) and shown 70 yellow cards, 1 double yellow offence, 1 red card, and awarded 3 penalties. Digging deeper it would appear most of those red card photos come from last season, so I can only suggest he has mellowed or been distracted by the increasing amounts of hair gel and beard oil he uses.
Scanning through his stats he mainly seems to have been reffing in the Championship and has done for a few years, so I don’t know what he has done to soil his boots with a League 1 game, but I have managed to track down the last time our paths crossed, and it was a sell-out crowd game at SMK in the 3rd Round of the EFL Cup against Liverpool in which we lost 2-0 in front of 28,521 fans.
One final word on the Ipswich game, their attendance will be worth in the region of £150k to us and the local economy, so it’s not all bad.
Mr Langford will be assisted by Craig Taylor and Ian Cooper on the flags and Rebecca Welch is the 4th Official. You may recall Rebecca took charge of our away game versus Morecambe in November last year in which we won 4-0 and still ranks as one of the best performances we have seen this season from a ref.
PHOTO CREDIT – The Shropshire Star
