Dale fans can think wistfully back to last April when they see Oliver Langford refereeing Saturday’s home game against Colchester.

That’s because the West Midlands official was the man in the middle for our final home game of last season against Cheltenham when two early goals gave Dale a 2-0 win to clinch promotion to League One.

However, four years earlier, Oliver was at Spotland for the late-season midweek encounter with Darlington which Dale needed to win to seal promotion their first from League Two.

As we all remember, Darlo won 1-0 to postpone Dale’s celebrations, although the victory couldn’t prevent The Quakers’ relegation to non-league football.

We also saw Mr Langford at AFC Wimbledon 13 months ago, where Scott Hogan’s hat-trick helped Dale to a 3-0 success.

Saturday will be his ninth Dale appointment, with the first — our 3-1 home defeat of Barnet in August 2008 - being Oliver’s debut game at Football League level.

His full list of Dale games including those already mentioned is:

Aug 2008 Barnet (h), W 3-1

Dec 2009 Crewe (a), D 2-2

Apr 2010 Darlington (h), L 0-1

Aug 2011 QPR (a, CC) W 2-0

Nov 2011 Preston (a), W 1-0

Dec 2012 York (h), L 2-3

Feb 2014 AFC Wimbledon (a), W 3-0

Apr 2014 Cheltenham (h), W 2-0

Before Tuesday night, when he was the referee for Sheffield United v Peterborough, the West Midlands whistler had officiated at 24 matches this season, showing 47 yellow cards and three red.

Photo: Action Images

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