HEADINGTON referee Rob Harris said today he feels sure he was right to send off Southampton's Paul Jones in what proved to be a highly eventful Premiership debut.

Harris's first match on the Premiership list at The Valley last Saturday became a goal feast as promoted Charlton went on the rampage, stuffing Southampton 5-0 to go top of the pile for the first time since 1937.

Harris showed goalkeeper Jones the red card for bringing down Clive Mendonca and that precipitated Saints' downfall. Stand-in keeper David Howells couldn't stop Mendonca's penalty and let in two more for an opening day scoreline no-one could have predicted.

"You'd have got long odds on a 5-0," Harris said. "But Charlton scored early on and played very well.

"The sending-off was a straight-forward situation where I just applied the laws as they currently exist.

"It was my debut game in the Premiership and I was quite pleased. You always learn as you go along, but I felt I had a reasonable first game. "There was no reaction from the Southampton manager or from anyone at the game, so I think they appreciated that it had to be done."

Harris, 42, who works locally as an after-sales manager in the motor industry, thought he was too old to be taken on in the Premier League, especially as there has been a trend to appoint younger refs.

He spent four years on the Nationwide League list and realised quite soon into last season - from the way he was getting big match appointments - that he was getting good marks from assessors and managers.

In the Premier League the merit list and method of marking are slightly different with the League taking greater note of assessors' marks and less of those from team bosses.

The higher level of football places greater demands on preparation for matches but, against that, he has fewer matches per season than in the Nationwide League.

"They've changed the method of appointment," he says. "In the Nationwide they used to announce appointments five weeks in advance but in the Premier now, under Philip Don, it's done on a fortnightly basis."

His next appointment is Nottingham Forest against Everton on September 9.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.