The referee is not influenced by the crowd. It may amount to heresy, but it is an important thing to know if you dabble in the ever-increasing spread and fixed-odds bets on which team will receive the first card or which team will receive the most cards.

The belief that the referee can be swayed by the crowd is embedded in our football culture. In the past, academic studies seemed to support it - though the most widely publicised one in this country turned out to involve park referees. These men are not accustomed to making decisions amid great noise. Premiership referees are.

If officials really were influenced by the hostility of the crowd they would award a disproportionately high number of cards to away teams, because crowds consist mostly of home supporters braying for the caution or dismissal of away players. It does not happen.

Why are players booked? Almost always it is because they have committed a foul, intentionally or not, while trying to regain the ball. In other words, cautions and dismissals are an almost inevitable consequence of defending. The more defending you do, the more likely you are to receive a yellow or red card.

In Premiership games in the last nine seasons, away teams conceded 58% of the goals that were scored and received 58% of the yellow cards. The number of yellow cards received was in exact proportion to the amount of defending they had to do.

There are two factors which influence whether a team receives the first card and how many they then receive. One is the general behaviour of the team - some, like West Ham, are well behaved and others, like Blackburn, Everton and Newcastle, are less well behaved. The other is how much defending they are likely to have to do. The crowd can roar as much as they like. It will not make a bit of difference.

Kevin Pullein is football tipster for the Racing Post