One of our regular officials in recent seasons, Jeremy Simpson, is the man in the middle at Fleetwood on Saturday.

The Carnforth-based whistler has refereed eight Dale games since joining the league list in 2012, most recently last October when he was in charge of our home game against Notts County in the Checkatrade Trophy.

Last season, Mr Simpson appeared three times at the Crown Oil Arena, with his first visit being for the 2-1 win over Chesterfield in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

He was back two months later as fourth official at the FA Cup tie versus Bury, while on Good Friday ‘Jez’ was in the middle for Dale’s 4-1 win over Southend.

We first saw him as a referee at home to Exeter in December 2012, a game The Grecians won 3-2 as John Coleman’s time as Dale manager continued to turn sour.

Exeter returned to Spotland 11 months later and so did Mr Simpson, although on this occasion Dale were 3-1 winners.

Jeremy was the referee for the home match against Doncaster in November 2014, which the visitors won 3-1 and Dale had Matty Done sent-off, while in March 2015, in a pre-cursor for Saturday, he was in charge of our 1-0 defeat at Fleetwood.

Now in his fifth season on the league list, Jez finished his non-league career by refereeing the 2011/12 Blue Square Premier League play-off final between York and Luton at Wembley.

Prior to his promotion, he was an assistant referee on the Premier League and also a FIFA official, which meant he travelled overseas to ‘line’ at European and international matches.

Mr Simpson had previously visited Spotland on linesman duties, most notably in 2010/11 when he was on the line for the FA Cup tie against FC United of Manchester.

This season Jeremy was chosen as one of the new Select Group 2 referees, meaning he mainly takes charge of games in the Championship.

His most recent appointment was last Sunday’s thrilling 3-3 draw between Brentford and Brighton and in total this term, Jez has refereed 26 games (18 in the Championship), showing 120 yellow cards and three red.

Photo: Action Images

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