Chris Sarginson is a late replacement for the injured Brendan Malone as the referee for Dale’s game at Barnet on Saturday.

This will be the Staffordshire official’s sixth Dale match, the most recent of which was at Spotland in December 2011 when we drew 0-0 with Yeovil. Two days later Steve Eyre and Frank Bunn were sacked as the club’s management team.

We first saw Chris for a 1-1 draw at Lincoln in October 2008 when he sent then-City manager Peter Jackson to the stand for over-zealous protests.

Later in the season at Macclesfield, Mr Sarginson awarded Dale a dubious penalty from which Tom Kennedy scored to win the game, leading to some fearful earache from Keith Alexander as he left the field at half-time.

Chris was the man in the middle for the 3-0 Carling Cup defeat at Sheffield Wednesday in August 2009, while he also refereed the 3-1 home defeat to Bradford in February 2010 to put a temporary halt to our promotion charge.

This season Chris has refereed 23 games, showing 51 yellow cards and four red. His most recent fixture was the League One encounter between Tranmere and Swindon on Tuesday, while he took charge of Barnet’s 2-2 draw at Exeter on 29th December.

Photo: Action Images

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