Experienced Premier League referee appointed for Wrexham vs Preston North End fixture
Preston North End are away again at the weekend to face Wrexham
Experienced referee Simon Hooper will take charge of Preston North End’s trip to Wrexham on Saturday.
Hooper has been a referee for well over two decades and officiated his first Premier League match more than 10 years ago in August 2015.
He has gone on to referee 141 top flight fixtures, including big top four clashes, as well as ties in the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, taking charge of semi-finals in the latter in the last three seasons.
The 44-year-old is experienced in the EFL, too, with 216 Championship matches under his belt, though in the last three seasons there have been only eight.
Hooper refereed 15 Premier League games in 2025-26, fourth officiating 13 more, but has been surprisingly under-utilised in the current campaign, with his last Premier League fixture coming on February 10 between West Ham United and Manchester United.
He has been the fourth official for two Championship games and one Premier League match, but only refereed three games, one each in League One, the EFL Trophy and an Under-21s fixture.
That League One match came on Saturday, seeing over Robbie Savage’s first game in charge of Peterborough United as they defeated Leicester City 3-1, and Saturday will see him step up to the Championship.
Preston’s record under Simon Hooper
Hooper has taken charge of 15 Preston fixtures over the years, with North End only managing to win four of those and losing eight. The last came in January 2022, when the Lilywhites were knocked out of the FA Cup by Cardiff City in extra time. In a 2018 meeting with Brentford, Hooper sent off Greg Cunningham for two yellow card offences.
Wrexham have only been refereed by Hooper once, a 3-1 FA Cup defeat to Stoke City in 2015.
Wade Smith and Matthew Joyce will be his assistants, and Elliott Bell will serve as the fourth official.
Graham Alexander will take his new team on their away travels again at the weekend with a trip to Wales to face 17th-placed Wrexham.
Preston are in desperate need of their first win under the recently-appointed manager as they have now fallen to 24th place in the Championship table after matching a 102-year-old record of losing eight of their first 10 matches.
The latest loss came in a 4-0 thrashing by Birmingham City on Tuesday, with Jordan Thompson saying the side must show a big response for the sold-out away allocation that is travelling to the Racecourse Ground.
Wrexham could do with a victory as well after they were booed off following their late home defeat to West Brom on Tuesday, which has seen manager Phil Parkinson come under pressure in the Dragons’ second Championship campaign.