We kick off the build up to Saturday's game with Chesterfield with a look at the man in the middle - Clive Oliver of Northumberland, and look for any previous matches where he's officiated us.
Back in October, young referee Michael Oliver took charge of Dale’s home game against Brentford. This coming weekend, his dad, Clive Oliver, will be the man in the middle at Spotland.
Clive is in his fourth season on the referees’ list and we have seen him twice at Spotland in that time.
He first appeared in October 2004 for a 2-1 loss to Cheltenham, while last season he was in charge of the FA Cup tie at home to Hartlepool which finished 0-0.
We also saw Clive at Darlington in August 2005 when he sent off the home side’s Matt Clarke in a 2-1 defeat for Dale.
No doubt Clarke would have scored a ridiculous own goal had he remained on the field for much longer!
Clive should have taken charge of another match at Spotland, but the fact he didn’t probably led to one of the biggest injustices in Dale history.
The game in question was against Lincoln in October 2005 when Clive was down as the appointed official.
He was moved to another game at the last minute, Russell Booth took over and ridiculously sent off Gareth Griffiths for an offence nobody apart from Keith Alexander saw!
Mr Oliver is currently enjoying his most successful season since joining the list. He has been in the middle for 25 matches - the most recent being Accrington v Stockport on Saturday – and ten of those games have been at Championship level.
In total he has shown 65 yellow cards, with his only red card going to Norwich’s Darel Russell in their recent 4-0 defeat at Leicester.
5 famous Clives
Clive Platt
Clive Dunn
Clive Gibbons
Clive Sinclair
Clive Owen
5 famous Olivers
Oliver Reed
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Twist
Jamie Oliver
Oliver’s Army