Select Group 2 referee Steve Martin is the man in the middle for Dale’s final home League One fixture of the season against Bradford on Sunday.

The Staffordshire-based whistler is in his fifth season on the league list and throughout this campaign he has mainly refereed games in the Championship.

Among his higher profile appointments have been a controversial televised game between Nottingham Forest and Newcastle in December in which The Magpies had two players sent-off in the first half as they went down to a 2-1 defeat.

Mr Martin also took charge of Wolves v Birmingham in February and another big local derby, Bury v Oldham, back in August.

Sunday will be Steve’s sixth Dale game, but his first at the Crown Oil Arena.

We first saw him at Rotherham in September 2012 when John Coleman’s side pulled-off a fine 3-2 victory.

Two months later Mr Martin refereed our FA Cup tie at Morecambe which ended in a 1-1 draw, while in October 2014 he was in the middle for another excellent 3-2 away win at Swindon.

Later that season oversaw his first Dale defeat as we went down 3-2 at Walsall and in October 2015 he was the referee at Southend when Dale came from two goals down to draw 2-2.

So far this season he has refereed 33 games, showing 76 yellow cards and three red.

Photo: Action Images

Rochdale Polls