Dale fans can think wistfully back to April 2014 when they see Oliver Langford refereeing Saturday’s game at Sheffield United.
That’s because the West Midlands official was the man in the middle for the final home match of 2013/14 against Cheltenham when two early goals gave Dale a 2-0 win to clinch promotion to League One.
However, four years earlier, Oliver was at Spotland for the late-season midweek encounter with Darlington which Dale needed to win to seal promotion from League Two.
As we all remember, Darlo won 1-0 to postpone Dale’s celebrations, although the victory couldn’t prevent The Quakers’ relegation to non-league football.
We also saw Mr Langford at AFC Wimbledon in February 2014, where Scott Hogan’s hat-trick helped Dale to a 3-0 success, while his most recent Rochdale game was in March when goals from Rhys Bennett and Ian Henderson sealed a 2-1 home defeat of Colchester
Saturday will be Oliver’s tenth Dale appointment, with the first — our 3-1 home defeat of Barnet in August 2008 - being his debut game at Football League level.
Oliver’s full list of Dale games is:
Aug 08 Barnet (h) W 3-1
Dec 09 Crewe (a) D 2-2
Apr 10 Darlington (h) L 0-1
Aug 11 QPR (a, CC) W 2-0
Nov 11 Preston (a) W 1-0
Dec 12 York (h) L 2-3
Feb 14 AFC Wimbledon (a) W 3-0
Apr 14 Cheltenham (h) W 2-0
Mar 15 Colchester (h) W 2-1
So far this season the West Midlands whistler has officiated at 10 matches, showing 24 yellow cards.
His last match was Newport v Crawley, where defeat for the home side led to the sacking of manager Terry Butcher.