Cambridgeshire official Kevin Wright is the man in the middle for AFC Wimbledon’s first visit to Spotland under that name on Saturday.
We first saw Mr Wright (roccydalekevin?) in October 2003 for a game which ended in a rather unsavoury manner.
On that occasion he was in the first few months of his league refereeing career and had been appointed to Dale’s home fixture with Scunthorpe.
Kevin had dismissed The Iron’s Richard Kell in the first half, but Scunthorpe were doing a good job of hanging on until Leo Bertos broke the deadlock with eight minutes remaining.
Shortly after Dale were awarded a penalty, but Bertos saw his spot-kick saved by Sam Russell.
However, the linesman had spotted an infringement, a re-take was awarded and Ged Brannan smashed it home to clinch a 2-0 win.
Unfortunately this was too much to take for several Scunny followers, who broke through a stewards’ cordon and attempted to climb into the WMG end.
These were disgraceful scenes the like of which hadn’t been seen at Spotland since the same group of fans invaded the pitch during an FA Cup tie in 1990!
Since then we have met Mr Wright just four more times.
He was the referee at Chester in January 2005 when the home side had two players sent-off – including Paul Carden – but put the remaining nine behind the ball to shut out our attack as the game finished 0-0.
He also refereed the 0-0 draw at Bristol Rovers in September 2006 and the 3-1 home defeat of Dagenham in February 2010.
Kevin’s last Dale game was at Leyton Orient in October 2010, where we were beaten 2-1.
So far this season he has refereed just eight games, showing 28 yellow cards and one red.