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Ham Vs NUFC Referee Watch: Phil Dowd
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 Friday
16 December 2005
By Paul
Mosley
Paul Mosley a Toon supporter and one of Newcastle-Online.com's
resident qualified referees, takes a look at Phil Dowd, the man who
will be officiating the West Ham United Vs Newcastle United match
at Upton Park. Here Paul will go through Dowd's history of refereeing
Toon matches and providing a statistical breakdown of the ref's handling
of United over the years.
Phil
Dowd, who is based in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, is in his 5th
season on the Select Group of referees, and is 42 years-old. He takes
charge of his second Newcastle United game of the season at the Boleyn
Ground on Saturday as we take on West Ham United, having already done
our televised League clash at Wigan in October.
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Phil Dowd Background |
Phil joined the Football League list of referees in 1997 at the age
of 34, so he was actually quite late in progressing to the upper echelons
in the refereeing world. Phil has been on the Premier League since
the 2001/02 season, and his 1st match, between Fulham and Everton,
saw 2 red cards and a 20-man brawl! Since then he has featured consistently
on the Premier League, but seems to have been able to avoid both Newcastle
and West Ham.
His late start is reflected in the fact that, despite being one of
our better officials, he was not nominated for the FIFA list. Previously
very overweight, he seems to have focused more on his fitness and
has slimmed down a fair bit, and his refereeing has improved with
it.
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Phil Dowd Recent Form |
This season Phil has refereed 11 Premiership games, issuing red cards
in 2 of them, which means he still has some way to go to match his
tally of 7 last season. His reds this season were to Lee McCulloch,
when we visited Wigan (more of which later), and to Mohamed Sissoko
for 2 cautionable offences in Liverpool’s 2-0 win over Sunderland
at the Stadium of Light. Those 11 games have resulted in just 3 home
wins, and 7 away wins, with just the one draw. He has also awarded
3 penalties so far this season, 1 to West Ham against Bolton (more
about that later), one to Chelsea at Fratton Park and one to Manchester
City at The Valley.
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Phil Dowd & Newcastle |
Despite being on the Premier League list for four and a half seasons
now, Phil seems to have managed to steer clear of us for whatever
reason. This will be only his 6th Premier League match in charge of
Newcastle, and he has also done one League Cup tie.
Of the 6 he has done so far, we have won 4, and drawn and lost 1 each
(which is a 67% win rate). Of those 6, 5 were Premiership matches
(which resulted in 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat, a 60% win rate), and
2 were away Premiership matches (resulting in 1 draw and 1 defeat,
0% win rate).
He has shown only 1 red card in a Newcastle game, which was to our
opponents. He has awarded a penalty each to us and our opponents,
both at St James’ Park, both in the same game, neither in the Premiership.
He shows around 1.7 yellow cards per game to Newcastle players, and
1.3 per game to opposing players.
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Phil Dowd & Controversy |
Other than a stone wall penalty not given in our home game with Leeds
in January, there was no controversy until he came north for our Carling
Cup 3rd Round tie with Norwich City in October last season. Even then
he did nothing particularly controversial, awarding a clear penalty
to us when Edworthy fouled Darren Ambrose to put us 2-0 ahead, and
reciprocating with a correct Norwich penalty when Ameobi fouled Svensson,
which Huckerby scored to give us a tense finale.
The major controversy involving Phil was our game at Wigan this season
in the Premiership. With Wigan leading 1-0, there were a couple of
potential penalties to Newcastle not awarded, and then Alan Shearer
headed an Emre corner over the line where it was desperately cleared
by Leighton Baines. Sadly for Newcastle, Phil had to agree with his
assistant referee Andy Williams, who said the ball did not cross the
line, and no goal was awarded, with United going on to lose 1-0, despite
the correct sending off of Wigan’s Lee McCulloch for a shocking high
and cynical challenge on Emre.
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Phil Dowd & West Ham United |
Phil has refereed just 3 West Ham United games in his time, of which
they have drawn 1 and lost 2 (0% win rate). 2 of those games were
Premiership (2 defeats, 0% win rate), and both of those were at Upton
Park.
He has yet to show a red card in a fixture involving West Ham, but
has awarded them penalties in his last 2 fixtures involving them,
an away draw in the Championship at Burnley, and a home defeat to
Bolton in the Premiership earlier this season. He averages 1.7 yellow
cards per game to West Ham, and 2.3 yellows per game to their opponents.
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Phil Dowd Conclusions |
Phil Dowd is a very under-rated referee who is up there with our best,
as has been reflected in his appointments this season. His willingness
to lose weight, get fitter and therefore improve his refereeing is
admirable, and gives decisions he makes more credibility. He does
have his share of card happy days, so be prepared to see a few cautions.
Also keep an eye out for the famous Dowd snarl, which you may have
seen if you saw coverage of Manchester City’s win at Charlton where,
after a penalty award to Manchester City, Dowd was clearly seen to
snarl ‘Go away, you pushed him in the back, go away!’.
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West Ham United Vs Newcastle United History |
02/03 – Big Jeff Winter was in charge as we drew
a cracking game 2-2 at the Boleyn Ground. Craig Bellamy gave us a
1st half lead, only for Joe Cole and Jermaine Defoe to send us in
2-1 down at half time. A spectacular late equaliser from Jermaine
Jenas, his 1st Premier League goal, earned us a share of the spoils.
01/02 – Peter Jones of Loughborough turned up and
denied us what appeared a stone wall penalty when Robbie Elliott was
fouled in the area by Christian Dailly, and he also failed to dismiss
Nigel Winterburn when he could have done. Goals from Hutchison, Di
Canio and Kanoute saw us fall to a sorry 3-0 defeat.
00/01 – Mike Riley made the journey down from Leeds
to take in a 1-0 United defeat, thanks to a second half goal from
Fredi Kanoute.
99/00 – Paul Alcock (yes, he who was pushed over
by Paolo di Canio) presided over a 2-1 home win for the happy Hammers.
Despite Gary Speed putting us ahead 2 minutes into the second half
in pouring rain, we capsized to 2 Paulo Wanchope goals.
© Paul Mosley
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