The Men In Black: Forest v Birmingham City

The match officials for the FA Cup 3rd round tie at the City Ground, between Forest and Birmingham have been announced.

Mr. Steve Bennett, from sunny Kent gets the gig for this FA Cup 3rd round encounter. Mr. Bennett has been a Premier League referee since 1999 and is one of the more reliable and less controversial officials on the list. He was until recently on the FIFA official list and retired in 2006, at the compulsory age of 45 (isn’t Wikipedia a wonderful thing?).

You have to go all the way back to the 2004/5 season to find the last time he took charge of a game involving the Reds’. It was the 5th round FA Cup game with Spurs, in which we fought for a valiant 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane, with Gareth Taylor getting an equaliser.

So far this campaign, Mr. Bennett has refereed 15 games, in which he’s dished out a whopping 59 yellow cards and 2 red.

He will be ably assisted on the lines by Mr. M. Matadar and Mr. R. J. Madley. The 4th official is Mr. J. Singh.