Man In The Middle

The referee for Saturday’s home game against Walsall will be Mr Scott Mathieson from Stockport.

Mathieson is an experienced league ref, having refereed in the league since 1997.He began refereeing in the Cheshire area prior to his promotion to the Football League Assistants list in 1990. It took four years before he was promoted to the national list of referees.

Saturday won’t be his first Alex game of the season either after he refereed the trip to Tranmere earlier in the season. That day he gave the Alex a penalty in a 1-1 draw.

Before that, the last Crewe game he took charge of was over five years ago. It was the painful last day of the 01/02 season at home to Rotherham, where we needed to over come a 10 goal goal difference deficit to avoid relegation. That day he booked just the one Crewe player, Efe Sodje.

Last season he refereed Walsall’s League Two clash with Darlington which ended 0-0. He booked a player from each side that day, including Walsall’s Hector Sam.

So far this season he has handed out 24 yellows in 14 games and just one red.

He will be assisted by P I Thompson and D Unsworth and the fourth official will be Mr C Dunn.