Just why does Trevor Kettle leave football fans boiling?
HEARTS SINK WHEN HE IS ANNOUNCED AS REFEREE – AND THEY HAVE DONE NOW SINCE HE STARTED IN 2002
NOT for nothing do hearts sink and fans expect a grim day when Trevor Kettle is announced as the referee for a game.
So just what is it about Kettle and his 19-year record of antagonising players, fans and managers alike?
Kane Hemmings would not be drawn on whether the players think the same after Saturday’s game against Charlton Athletic but the Brewers striker is an old hand at this and canny enough to keep his thoughts to himself.
He accepted it with quiet resignation when Kettle booked him for diving after he was taken out by Charlton keeper Craig McGillivray late in the first half, the second League game in succession in which he had touched the ball past a keeper and not had the chance to follow it and score into an empty net.
By then, Kettle had already made an idelible mark on the game. Surely yellow cards would have sufficed when Deji Oshilaja and Jayden Stockley – team-mates last season – scuffled at a corner?
It was not just that he showed red cards. They were waved vaguely in the direction of a crowd of players and they were waved about a minute apart, as if the second man to go – Oshilaja – was an afterthought.
And they were waved with a flourish. It was the Trevor Kettle show, after all.
Kettle tallied five reds and two yellows on Saturday to take him to 56 yellows and six reds in only 15 games this season. He is maintaining his career average.
Oxford United manager Karl Robinson, who does tend to call a spade a spade, pointed out after a game in April, in which seven yellows and a red were shown, that Kettle matched him for industrial language in a confrontation afterwards – but only one person got punished.
Robinson’s take was that he would sit voluntarily in the stand the next time Kettle referees an Oxford game, just to remove himself from the potential flashpoint.
Saturday’s was only Kettle’s third League One game of the season and Robinson’s vow has yet to be put to the test.
The most bizarre of Saturday’s cards came when Charlton’s Akin Famewo, in first-half stoppage time, had the ball rolled to him by a teammate to take a throw-in and had barely had time to pick it up before a yellow card was waved in his face for timewasting.
Sure, supporters don’t enjoy timewasting but, quite simply, Famewo – who is suspended now, as it was his fifth card – was not doing it. Most other throw-ins in the match took longer. But Kettle had a point to make and that, it seemed, came above all else.
A few minutes later, it was halftime and Harry Arter, on the Charlton substitute’s bench, apparently passed comment on the refereeing as he went down the tunnel.
I have it on sound authority that the referee was apoplectic and demanded the player’s name. He then sent an edict to the ground announcer instructing that the booking should be announced. That was a new one on me.
The announcer, Ian Hawkins, who did as he was bid, points out that had Arter come on in the second half and got a yellow card, the crowd would not have known it was his second and would have been puzzled when a red card was then shown.
Fair enough but it did rather seem to smack of “I wouldn’t want anyone to miss one of my cards!”
And there are plenty of them not to miss. Kettle’s record and reputation has been established over a long period.
There are no sour grapes here. The Brewers were not good enough to deserve a point from Saturday’s game.
And, in the interests of fairness, I also have it on sound authority that he is a decent bloke off the pitch, a capable and customer-focused commercial director of a business, a friend of mine deals with.
But there is no referee in the lower leagues who attracts more ire than Kettle and it cannot be a coincidence. There is even an online petition which demanded his removal from the list.
Kettle’s first season in the Conference, in 2002-03, set the tone. He issued seven red cards in only 10 matches, to go with 40 bookings – yet it got him promoted to the Football League list and he had 131 yellows and 13 reds in 28 games the following season, hitting three doubles with the reds and recording his first double figures game for yellows, 11 shared between Scunthorpe United and Rochdale in a 2-2 draw.
“Officiating straight out of the draw marked ‘fussy,’ reported the
Manchester Evening News.
There were another 10 yellows when Derby County beat Cardiff City 2-1 in 2005.
Promoted to the Football League, Burton first encountered Kettle in March, 2010, with a modest five yellows shown in a 2-2 draw at home to Chesterfield.
It was the first and only season in which he has not sent anyone off.
The following season, there were eight yellows, a young Michael Bostwick among them, and a red as Stevenage beat Burton 2-1.
In 2011-12, perhaps Kettle was barely noticed for once, issuing only two yellows as Bristol Rovers beat the Brewers 7-1.
The referee was in good form otherwise though, recording another double figures game for yellows in March and issuing nine yellows and three reds – a personal best – when
Charlton won 1-0 away to Oldham Athletic a fortnight before that Burton game.
Marcus Holness saw red from Kettle for Burton in the opening game of the 2012-13 season, a 2-2 draw away to Sheffield United in the League Cup.
There was another milestone in 2014-15, when Kettle went through a season without a single card-free game.
Jamie Allen was sent off for two yellow cards when Burton lost 3-1 away to Oxford in August 2018; there were six other yellows in the game.
Since then, Kettle and Burton had only crossed paths (four yellows and a red) in last season’s ill-fated FA Cup defeat away to Barnet.
But the memories had not dimmed when he was on the list for Saturday and it did not take long to be reminded why.