Fast tracked official Elliot Bell takes his second QPR game on Saturday as the R's head to Derby.

Referee >>> Elliot Bell (Bootle)

Assistants >>> Graham Kane (Sussex) and Richard Woodward (Cheshire)

Fourth Official >>> Anthony Backhouse (Carlisle)

History

Oxford 1 QPR 3, Wednesday April 9, 2025, Championship

Whole thing now back in needless balance, QPR started to shithouse the game away. Time wasting over throw ins and goal kicks became chronic. Paul Nardi was eventually booked. The injury feigning and rolling around really became quite shameful and embarrassing to watch. Sub Harrison Ashby completed three full rolls to get him back on the pitch and stop the game, then when the referee rightly called his bluff he went sprinting after him to protest. Just play the game for goodness’ sake. Oxford had shown themselves to be a poor side, easily passed through should we wish, and now here we were trying to piss the clock away. Mitigation was plentiful – Rangers were clearly gassed, we’ve already said how much the team misses Field when he’s not on the pitch, and with further injuries to Kenneth Paal and Paul Smyth the R’s were starting to run out of warm bodies – but still. Fuck me.

Like working on an oil rig, everything’s fine until it’s not fine, and the moment it’s not fine it’s the farthest thing from fine. From a pleasant evening out in the sun to grim ordeal under a grill. Tick followed tock for a while, then the clock stopped entirely. When it did eventually run down to 90, rookie referee Bell rightly punished Rangers for their second half behaviour with 11 extra minutes.

Oxford: Cumming 4; Avest 5 (Mills 61, 6), Nelson 5, Helik 5, Brown – (Bennett 12, 5); Vaulks 5 (Bradshaw 75, 5), Brannagan 6; Placheta 5, Romeny 4 (Goodrham 46, 6), Dembele 5 (Matos 90+3, -); Harris 4 (Rodrigues 75, 6)

Subs not used: Mizouni, Ingram, Long

Goals: Mills 62 (assisted Dembele)

Yellow Cards: Brannagan 87 (foul)

QPR: Nardi 6; Dunne 6, Morrison 7, Edwards 7, Paal 6 (Fox 69, 6); Colback 7 (Morgan 90+10), -), Varane 7, Field 7 (Andersen 64, 5); Madsen 6 (Ashby 83, -), Bennie 6 (Min-Hyeok 64, 7), Smyth 6 (Dembele 82, -)

Subs not used: Kolli, Sutton, Walsh

Goals: Edwards 7 (assisted Madsen), Romeny og 42 (unassisted), Min-Hyeok 90+1 (assisted Dembele)

Yellow Cards: Nardi 89 (time wasting), Colback 90+7 (foul)

Referee – Elliot Bell (Liverpool) 7 Didn’t do much for the heartrate at the time, but nice to see a referee actually add time onto the end of the game properly when one of the team’s has tried to shithouse the second half away. Some weird odds and ends at times but overall pretty decent.

Stats

It’s been a rapid ascension up the EFL list for Liverpool’s Elliot Bell, who only started refereeing in 2015 and did his first Football League games little more than a year ago when he finished 2023/24 with Bristol Rovers 0-0 Shrewsbury and Wycombe 1-0 Charlton in League One.

He started this season mixing National League, League Two and EFL Trophy games before moving into League One. He made his Championship debut at the start of February with Swansea 0-1 Sheff Wed and has since done ten games at this level. Cards have been free flowing in that time with 162 yellows (4.15) and nine reds in 39 games topped out by ten yellows at Blackburn 2-1 Watford at the end of last season.

In March he became the latest PGMOL official to head over to Japan and referee J-League games as part of the exchange programme the two leagues run together with their match officials. There he refereed Vegalta Sendai 2-0 Oita Trinita, Consadole Sapporo 1-3 JEF United and Jubilo Iwata 2-1 Ventforet Kofu in J-League 2 in the first two weeks of March.

He's already got 14 games under his belt this season. He’s shown 62 yellows (3.64) and three reds in that time, including two reds in his last two outings. This is already his third appointment with Derby following a 1-0 home loss to Millwall in February and 3-1 defeat at Stoke on the opening day of this campaign.

Pictures - Reuters Connect

OldPedro added 10:23 - Oct 24 Clive, the first line reads as "Fast tracked official Elliot Bell takes his first QPR game on Wednesday night as the R’s head to Oxford." Probably needs updating :-)
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