I hope this doesn’t turn into some sort of spooky coincidence, but Saturday’s referee was also the man in the middle the last time we lost!

Wakefield’s Mark Haywood is in charge for Southampton’s first league visit to Spotland in over 50 years, just as he was when Dale lost 2-1 at Peterborough in December.

However, 12 months ago Mark refereed Dale’s League Two game at Macclesfield when Chris O’Grady’s fortunate ricochet clinched a 1-0 win.

Prior to that, he refereed the 6-1 home win over Chester in October 2008, in which Chris Dagnall netted a hat-trick.

Mr Haywood’s first Dale match came in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy at Wrexham in October 2006 when we won after a penalty shoot-out.

He then appeared at Spotland FOUR times in 2007, starting with the 2-0 Easter Monday loss at home to Barnet.

He returned for the Rose Bowl/Centenary Challenge game with Oldham in the following July and also took charge of the Carling Cup tie against Stoke and the League Two fixture with Wrexham later in the year.

After last weekend, Mark had refereed 24 games this season, showing 43 yellow cards and one red.

He has received a number of high profile appointments, such as the FA Cup third round tie between Crawley and Derby and the recent Doncaster v Barnsley and Scunthorpe v Hull local derbies.

Mr Haywood was also appointed to the first leg of the JPT southern final tie between Brentford and Exeter, while on Tuesday he was due at Boundary Park for Oldham v Carlisle.

Refworld Profile: http://refworld.com/referee/140/1/mark-haywood

Colchester United Polls