The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

Courtesy of the Conference Forum. The hopeless officials for the two big games are:

Rushden & Diamonds v Oxford United
R: D H Coote
AR: M D'Aguilar & S Brown (B98)
Fourth Official: I Smedley
Assessor: P Jones

Oxford United v Rushden & Diamonds
R: M Brown
AR: R Ellis & R A Mackay
Fourth Official: A R Hendley
Assessor: G B Parish


David Coot has refereed 12 Conference games this season - 40 yellow cards and 1 red, which was McNammara.

Mark Brown has refereed 9 Conference games this season and shown 35 yellow cards and 5 reds, including Downer.

They're not hopeless! they're two of the best Refs i've seen all year...Oxford hate them as do Luton and York...we look forward to having the game refereed fairly and decently by two of the best. ;)

(just in case they read this and feel some hatred..thought i'd try and get them on our side)

None of them are a Mr R Fletcher, so that's one blessing to count. Incidently which of our games have they been the ref for? Assuming one is Histon away, and one of Altrincham/Salisbury Home.

Was David Coot the ref in charge of our 1-0 win over Histon? If so... :?

Brown was Downers red on the opening day of the season - no-one argued. Don't remember him getting anything overly wrong in that game. Gave us a penalty early in the match. Was due to referee our game at Mansfield origianlly, but it was called off (was a different ref for the replay).

Coot was Nicky Mac's red away at Histon. I thought it was wrong at the time but it was an awful view from that stand and there can be little complaint looking at the photo of the incident. Gave us a penalty early on which we scored. Did seem to give them more following that though nothing overly stupid.

If anyone knows of the other games they have reffed for us in the past it would be appreciated. Brown's 9 games and 5 reds seems excessive, but then again Downers was one of them.

At least a certain Russell Fletcher isnt one of the officials.

Mr Coote also sent off Gareth Jelleyman when we lost at Oxford in 2008-09.

Mark Brown sent off Corcoran at Northwich in Mar 09 (no complaints there !).

They both seem decent and experienced conference refs who won't take nonsense.

diamondgeezer1 wrote:At least a certain Russell Fletcher isnt one of the officials.

Was thinking the same, also am glad it's not a certain Mr Creighton who was the ref at Oxford last time