Steve BennettSteve Bennett, from Orpington in Kent, is 46 years old, and takes charge of his 2nd Newcastle match of the 2007/08 season as Wigan Athletic travel to St James’ Park to face us in the Premiership. We have a bit of an unhappy history with Mr Bennett, who has made several controversial (but not necessarily incorrect) decisions against us in the past.

» Form Guide

Bennett is one of the more senior referees on the list, and has done 8 Premiership games so far this campaign. Within those he has shown 31 yellow cards and 4 red cards, one to Fulham’s Chris Baird at Aston Villa last Saturday, one each to Sulley Muntari and Cristiano Ronaldo when the champions Manchester United visited Fratton Park, and one to Kevin Kilbane when Wigan visited us in October. The games he has done have resulted in 6 home wins, a draw and an away win.

» Background

Bennett joined the Football League list in 1995, having been an assistant referee at the 1995 FA Cup Final. 4 years later he was promoted to the Premier League list of referees, and in January 2001 he was nominated for FIFA International status, and refereed his first full International in March 2003, Paraguay’s 1-1 draw with Nigeria. He subsequently refereed several Internationals, and last season refereed Champions League games in the Nou Camp and Santiago Bernabeu.

In August 2003 the Football Association chose him to referee the FA Community Shield between Manchester United and Arsenal, and in February 2005 he was picked to referee the Carling Cup Final between Liverpool and Chelsea. He came off the FIFA list at the turn of the year because he had reached the age of 45 during 2006, and was finally appointed to the FA Cup Final when it returned to Wembley in May.

» Bennett and Newcastle

Bennett has refereed 24 Newcastle games, of which we have won 7, drawn 7 and lost 10. Of those, 10 have been home matches, resulting in 3 wins, 3 draws and 4 defeats, and 20 of the 24 were in the Premiership, with us winning 7, drawing 7 and losing the other 6.

He has shown 9 red cards in Newcastle games, with 5 of those being to us. 4 of the 9 reds came at St James’ Park, with 1 of those to us. He has awarded 7 penalties in Newcastle games, 3 of those to us, and none on Tyneside.

Our best win with Steve in charge was a 2-0 win at Birmingham City in October 2002, and our worst defeat was a 2-4 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur in January 2001 (some would argue that in the true sense of the word, our worst defeat was the 0-1 at home to Sheffield United in November of last year!). The highest scoring game he has been involved in was our 4-3 home win over Manchester United in September 2001, with the lowest scoring being 3 goalless draws.

Last season he oversaw our 1-1 home draw with Everton, followed by our 0-1 home defeat to Sheffield United, our 3-2 victory at Tottenham Hotspur, and our goalless home draw with Middlesbrough.

» Controversy

Controversy isn’t exactly in short supply when it comes to Steve Bennett, as has been shown by his various Newcastle games over the years.

The day after New Year 2001, Bennett left a massive mark on a game at White Hart Lane against tonight’s opponents Tottenham Hotspur. Newcastle took an early lead, but Spurs were level when a very dubious penalty was awarded when Speed was adjudged to have fouled Anderton, who levelled from the spot. Two minutes later, the ball was fired at Solano, who was sent off for deliberate handball, and this time Harper saved Anderton’s penalty. With Spurs going 3-1 up, Newcastle hit back just after the break by winning a penalty of their own, this time Neil Sullivan being sent off for Spurs. Dyer dispatched the penalty before foolishly getting himself sent off for using abusive language to Assistant Referee Phil Sharp when he didn’t receive a free kick, although he had clearly been fouled down the right flank 10 minutes into the 2nd half. With us now down to 9 men, Spurs confirmed a 4-2 victory late on.

Bennett’s next Newcastle game was a rather happier affair, the 4-3 victory over Manchester United in Sir Bobby’s 100th game in charge, with Steve dismissing Roy Keane in the closing minutes for 1st throwing the ball at, then trying to stick the nut on Big Al.

His final Newcastle game of the 2002/03 season was definitely his toughest, the Wear-Tyne derby at the Stadium of Light. His performance was strong though. He awarded us a penalty (correctly) for a foul on Bellamy, disallowed goals for either side, and could easily have dismissed Viana but decided on a very stern public bollocking rather than a 2nd yellow. We of course won 1-0 thanks to Nobby Solano converting that penalty.

Into 2004/05, and Bennett was given the task of doing our opening day TV clash with Middlesbrough. Bennett denied a penalty appeal for Middlesbrough when a Newcastle defender handled early on, but gave us a penalty of our own when Ameobi was fouled in the final 10 minutes. However, maybe he had been infected by the conjunctivitis which was affecting the Toon squad, for he failed to spot a handball by Hasselbaink, who levelled by punching the ball into the net in the final seconds.

He then came north for the Carling Cup tie with Chelsea, and gave the evil Joe Cole an incredible amount of leeway in the Londoners’ 2-0 win. His next trip north was just after Christmas, for the visit of Arsenal. It was a very feisty match, but Bennett lost control of it, and failed to award Newcastle a penalty when Ashley Cole clearly handled the ball (seems to make a habit of missing handballs). He then gave the Arsenal players plenty of warnings when making very rash challenges, but his card was out rather quicker for Steven Taylor. Arsenal managed to win 1-0 with a deflected Patrick Vieira goal.

We of course began the 2005/06 season at Highbury against Arsenal, where we saw perhaps Bennett’s most controversial showing to date. The red card for Jenas’ challenge on Gilberto was the major talking point, and whilst correct in law, a red card was incredibly harsh, and Bennett himself downgraded it the very next day, writing to Newcastle to apologise. He did not apologise for his award of a controversial late penalty after Charles N’Zogbia was adjudged to have fouled Freddie Ljungberg. This allowed Arsenal to break the deadlock and they won 2-0.

He refereed our atrocious 1-0 Carling Cup defeat at Wigan, where we went down 1-0 to another controversial late penalty, this time given for a Robbie Elliott foul on Jason Roberts. After that he did our 2-2 draw with Middlesbrough on New Year Holiday Monday, and the only real controversy was his failure to award Middlesbrough a penalty for some classic Robbie Elliott defending and handballing.

In the 2006 FA Cup Quarter Final defeat at Chelsea, he harshly dismissed Elliott for 2 cautions, while in September of last season he dismissed both Titus Bramble and Tony Hibbert within a matter of moments, in our one-all draw with Everton. After a controversy free 0-1 loss to Sheffield United, we went to Tottenham and won, but not without an offside 1st goal for the home side, and a skirmish involving Pascal Chimbonda and Nicky Butt, which saw both players booked and possibly lucky to stay on the field. He then refereed our controversy free 0-0 draw with Boro in March.

On September 1st he was in charge of our 1-0 home win over Wigan Athletic, and greatly angered with visitors by dismissing Kevin Kilbane for a second yellow card just seconds into the second half.

» Special Facts

Between April 26th 2003 and January 14th 2007, Newcastle did not win a single match Bennett presided over. After the 1-0 derby victory at Sunderland, we drew 6 and lost 7 of the next 13 games he refereed, only to break the jinx with our win at Spurs earlier this year.

Bennett has refereed Newcastle vs Tottenham fixtures on 4 occasions to date, with each side winning 2, and no shortage of controversy across the 4 games.

» Conclusions

I often don’t know what to make of Steve Bennett. He’s a strong referee, but he’s very officious, and some fans don’t take kindly to that. He can also be a bit trigger-happy when it comes to awarding red cards and penalties. He does also make the odd grave error but on the whole is a strong performer, and probably the most consistent official on the list.