Cheshire official Mark Heywood will referee Tuesday’s Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie at home to Walsall, which might cause confusion among fans who like to keep track of this sort of thing.

That’s because Mark Heywood, with an ‘E’, shouldn’t be confused with West Yorkshire’s Mark Haywood, with an ‘A’, who refereed Dale’s home match against Bristol City in August.

We last saw Mr Heywood in March for the 3-0 win at Northampton in which the only blot on our copybook was Matty Lund receiving a second yellow card after celebrating with the fans after scoring a fine diving header.

In November 2012 Mark was at Spotland for the dreadful 1-0 defeat by Morecambe in the FA Cup first round replay, while in October 2011 he was in charge of Dale’s 2-1 home win over Wycombe.

We have also seen Mr Heywood at pre-season friendlies against Radcliffe Borough and Manchester United in recent years.

So far this season Mark has refereed eight games, showing 24 yellow cards and one red.

His most recent fixture was Hartlepool v Portsmouth at the end of September, although on Friday night he was fourth official at Blackpool v Cardiff.

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