West Yorkshire referee David Coote is the man in the middle for Dale’s home game versus Rotherham on Saturday.
The Halifax-based whistler is in his eighth season on the league list and this will be his fourth appearance at the Crown Oil Arena.
His first was in February 2015 when David refereed the 1-0 league defeat of Chesterfield, while later that year he was in the middle for Dale’s disappointing 1-0 home loss to Morecambe in the JPT.
Mr Coote’s most recent Dale appointment was just over a year ago when he officiated at the 1-0 midweek defeat of Bolton.
We have also met David in two away fixtures, although at those times he was based in Nottinghamshire.
In February 2012 he refereed Dale’s rather dire 0-0 draw at Colchester, but ten men months later David took charge of a significantly more exciting game in which John Coleman’s team won 4-2 at Bradford.
Mr Coote spent most of his first season refereeing in League One and League Two, but has since progressed to referee mainly in the Championship.
His performances at the higher level were rewarded in May 2014 when David was appointed as the referee for the League One play-off final at Wembley in which Rotherham came from 2-0 down to defeat Leyton Orient 3-2.
Last season he was one of the referees to join the newly-formed Select Group 2 list and he refereed a large number of games in the second tier as well as Fleetwood v Bradford in the play-offs.
He wasn’t in action in the opening weeks of this season, but has returned recently to take charge of Chesterfield v Yeovil, Wigan v Walsall and Port Vale v Newcastle U21 (Checkatrade Trophy).