Dale’s final home game before Christmas against Colchester on Saturday will be officiated by a headline writer’s dream in the shape of Leicestershire referee Trevor Kettle.
References to whistling and things boiling over are sure to surface, especially if Mr Kettle grabs the headlines as he has been prone to do down the years.
He joined the league list in 2003 and one of his first games was Dale’s fine 3-1 win at Torquay in which Robert Betts scored twice and Michael Simpkins was sent-off.
Later that term Trevor was the referee for the famous ‘goose game’ at Scunthorpe, where the invading bird was one of the few performers on the pitch not to be shown a yellow card — Mr Kettle ridiculously booking 11 players having made a rod for his own back early in the match.
Trevor’s most recent Dale appointment was at the start of 2015 when we hosted Crawley at Spotland.
Sterling work by the groundstaff saw the pitch passed fit to play, despite it having a light covering of snow and the surrounds being significantly snow-covered, but everyone’s efforts paid off as Dale eased to a comfortable 4-1 win.
This was Mr Kettle’s eighth Dale game and his full list of appointments is:
Aug 03 Torquay v Rochdale W 3-1
Apr 04 Scunthorpe v Rochdale D 2-2
Oct 06 Rochdale v Stockport L 1-3
Feb 09 Rochdale v Grimsby T W 2-0
Jan 12 Rochdale v Preston D 1-1
Oct 12 Rochdale v Oxford W 2-0
Apr 14 Mansfield v Rochdale L 0-3
Jan 15 Rochdale v Crawley W 4-1
So far this season Trevor has refereed 16 games, showing 66 yellow cards and six red. His last appointment was Fulham v Ipswich on Tuesday night in the Championship.