Peter Wright will referee at the Crown Oil Arena for the first time on Saturday when Dale entertain Gateshead in the FA Cup.

The Liverpool official is in his debut season on the National List, although this isn’t his first Dale game, as Mr Wright was in charge of our pre-season friendly at Tranmere in July, which ended in a comfortable 3-1 win for Keith Hill’s men.

The policeman was also in the middle at Dale’s friendly at Marine in July 2012, which ended in rather bizarre circumstances just after 9.00pm.

Dale were 1-0 up, but with the light fading and Marine keen to save on the electricity bill, the referee and both managers agreed to stop the game before the floodlights were needed!

Despite Saturday being his first ‘proper’ Dale appointment as a referee, Peter has previously been a linesman at several of our matches, one of which was the 4-0 home loss to Scunthorpe in the 2013/14 promotion campaign.

After refereeing over 20 matches in the National League last season, including Tranmere v Ebbsfleet in the play-offs, Mr Wright started this term in mid-August with Crawley v Stevenage.

His most recent league game was Morecambe v Yeovil last weekend, while on Tuesday, Peter was in the middle at Accrington v WBA U21 in the Checkatrade Trophy.

Before that match, he had refereed 13 matches this season, showing 38 yellow cards and four red.

Photo: Action Images

Rochdale Polls