Tanner Refs Watford Clash

Unless there is a late change, the referee for Saturday’s game at home to Watford is Steve Tanner of East Sussex.

Tanner started refereeing in the Southern Leagues in 1987. He worked his way up and was promoted to the Football League as an assistant referee in 1998. He then went on to make the National List of referees in 2003.

Reading have met up with Tanner three times so far this season, the first time was in August when the Royals took on Millwall at the Mad Stad. Reading were already a goal up through Bobby Convey when the Millwall keeper Andy Marshall was sent off. Convey, Harper, Sidwell and Kitson added more goals as Reading romped home 5-0.

The next time Tanner took charge of a Reading game was in October when the Royals beat Ipswich 2-0 at home. A Richard Naylor own goal and another from Kevin Doyle gave Reading the points in a 2-0 win. There were five bookings in the game, all going to Ipswich players.

In December Tanner was with us again as we went to Wolverhampton and beat Wolves 2-0. Dave Kitson and Bobby Convey were on the mark for the Royals, and unusually for Tanner, there were no cards shown.

This season Tanner has been in charge of 28 games so far and in that time he has managed to show 114 yellow cards and nine red, which is some going.

Our game with Wolves was the only one this season that he has failed to show a card in while his highest card count in one game is ten, they were all yellows and shown in the game between Plymouth and QPR in November.