Stuart Attwell will be hoping history doesn’t repeat itself this weekend. The Warwickshire official will be the man in the middle when Leeds United get their Premier League campaign back underway with the visit of Aston Villa.
If the last time he refereed the fixture is anything to go by, though, Attwell might have his work cut out at Elland Road. The 39-year-old was in charge on that eventful and chaotic afternoon in April 2019 when Dean Smith’s Villa travelled to Yorkshire to face Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds on the penultimate day of the Championship season.
Both Villa and Leeds had play-off spots in the bag before the game but that didn’t prevent either side from pushing to get the upper hand on a promotion rival and in the 72 nd minute of the contest, it all kicked off as Leeds took the lead in controversial circumstances. After seeing Jonathan Kodjia hit the deck through injury, Villa slowed to a halt in the expectation that Leeds would put the ball out of play for the striker to receive treatment.
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They did no such thing, though, as Tyler Roberts freed Mateusz Klich down the line before the Polish international cut inside and curled a shot into the bottom corner of Jed Steer’s goal. Conor Hourihane immediately took exception to Klich’s actions and grabbed him by his shirt before he could celebrate the effort.
A melee ensued that saw both sets of players come together as Villa voiced their disgust. Anwar El Ghazi was red carded by Atwell due to violent conduct, a decision that was overturned retrospectively due to Patrick Bamford’s actions.
After four minutes of chaos, the game eventually got back underway with cameras zoning in on Bielsa screaming instructions to his side and pointing towards Leeds’ goal. And, despite the best efforts of Pontus Jansson, Albert Adomah was allowed to stroke home an equaliser in the 77 th minute of the contest.
Bielsa was praised for his sportsmanship, but it will undoubtedly go down as the most bizarre moment in Attwell’s professional career to date. Of course, a host of those involved that day have since moved on, but it’s fair to say there’s no love lost between the two sides.
A total of 23 yellow cards have been handed out in the four Premier League games the two have played since with one red card to boot. Their pre-season meeting in Brisbane could only be described as a feisty affair, too, with a fierce challenge from John McGinn resulting in Archie Gray being stretchered off, while the game threatened to boil over on a number of occasions.
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