Dale’s maiden home game against Crawley Town on Saturday will be officiated by a headline writer’s dream in the shape of Leicestershire referee Trevor Kettle.

References to whistling and things boiling over are sure to surface, especially if Mr Kettle grabs the headlines as he has been prone to do down the years.

He joined the league list in 2003 and one of his first games was Dale’s fine 3-1 win at Torquay in which Robert Betts scored twice and Michael Simpkins was sent-off.

Later that term Trevor was the referee for the famous ‘goose game’ at Scunthorpe, where the invading bird was one of the few performers on the pitch not to be shown a yellow card — Mr Kettle ridiculously booking 11 players having made a rod for his own back early in the match.

More recently we saw Trevor at Mansfield last April where Dale were beaten 3-0, while his last game at Spotland was the 2-0 midweek home win over Oxford in October 2012.

Trevor’s full list of Dale games is:

Aug 03 v Torquay U. (a), W 3-1

Apr 04 v Scunthorpe U. (a), D 2-2

Oct 06 v Stockport Co. (h), L 1-3

Feb 09 v Grimsby T. (h), W 2-0

Jan 12 v Preston N.E. (h), D 1-1

Oct 12 v Oxford U. (h), W 2-0

Apr 14 v Mansfield (a), L 0-3

So far this season Trevor has refereed seven games, showing 24 yellow cards and no red. He has a low number of appointments as he only returned to action in November after fitness and injury problems.

Photo: Action Images

Rochdale Polls