Another trip to the south coast on Saturday and another appearance from referee Gavin Ward.
The Surrey official was the man in the middle for our last two visits to Bournemouth, the first a 2-1 win for Dale in May 2011 and the second a 1-1 draw last October when Gary Jones and Michael Symes each scored penalties.
Affectionately known as ‘the schoolboy’ among his colleagues due to his cherubic face and young looks, this is in fact 32-year-old Gavin’s sixth season on the league list.
Away from Bournemouth, Dale have met him on two other occasions.
He was the referee at Barnet in March 2009 when we lost the game 2-1 and had Chris Dagnall shown a straight red card for a bad tackle.
Gavin also refereed Dale at Wycombe in January 2008 when he spotted a late foul on Ben Muirhead and awarded a penalty which Tom Kennedy converted for the only goal of the game.
This season Mr Ward has refereed two matches, showing seven yellow cards.
He was most recently at AFC Wimbledon v Chesterfield last Friday.