Surrey referee Gavin Ward is the man in the middle for Saturday’s trip to Whaddon Road to take on Cheltenham.
We last saw him at Torquay in August 2012 where Dale were on the end of a 4-2 defeat, although Mr Ward did send-off a home defender and award Dale a penalty, which Jason Kennedy unfortunately missed.
Prior to that Gavin had refereed two consecutive Dale games at Bournemouth; our 2-1 win there in May 2011 and the 1-1 draw five months later when Gary Jones and Michael Symes each scored penalties.
We also saw Mr Ward at Barnet in March 2009 when Dale 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 gave a penalty which Tom Kennedy converted for the only goal of the game.
So far this season Mr Ward has refereed nine matches, showing 22 yellow cards and three red.
He was most recently at Southend v Dagenham in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.