Select Group referee Lee Probert is the man in the middle for Dale’s opening fixture of the 2017/18 season at Portsmouth on Saturday.
Mr Probert was appointed to the list of elite match officials in 2007 and refereed regularly in the Premier League and on the international stage until the end of the 2014/15 season.
He then suffered an unfortunate injury which sidelined him for the whole of the following campaign, but Lee worked his way back to fitness to officiate in the EFL for the majority of last term.
Having proved his fitness and ability, Probert ended the season with four Premier League appointments, taking him to 151 top flight matches in total in his career.
Undoubtedly, the highlight of that career came in May 2014 when he was appointed to the FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Hull City.
Hull took a surprise early 2-0 lead, only for The Gunners to fight back and lift the trophy after a 3-2 win.
As far as Dale are concerned, we last saw Lee in September 2008 when he was in the middle for a Sunday afternoon trip to Accrington.
Dale won 3-1 that day, thanks to goals from Adam Le Fondre, Will Buckley and Jordan Rhodes.
Probert has also refereed Dale on three other occasions.
In September 2003, he was in charge of the 2-1 loss at Macclesfield, which fans may ruefully remember for some rather comical defending by Dale’s back-line!
Lee was also the referee for our first-ever trip to Yeovil later that season, a game that ended in a 1-0 defeat, while in November 2004 we saw him at Oxford when Dale won 1-0 thanks to Tony Gallimore’s late shot hitting the post and rebounding in off the ‘keeper’s head!