Dale’s midweek trip to Charlton on Tuesday will be refereed by Charles Breakspear.
The Surrey official is in his fifth season on the referees’ list and this will be only his third appointment at a Rochdale match.
We last saw Charles just over a year ago when he was the man in the middle for Dale’s FA Cup first round tie at Maidstone.
Before that, his other Dale appointment was at Colchester in December 2014 when Keith Hill’s men strolled to a comprehensive 4-1 win, scoring three of their goals in the first half.
Mr Breakspear was promoted from the Conference list at the end of the 2012/13 season and his first Football League game was York v Northampton on the opening day of the following campaign.
He spent the majority of his first two years on the league list refereeing in the basement divisions, but in 2015/16, Charles took charge of 11 games in the Championship and Newport v Blackburn in the third round of the FA Cup.
Such a large number of games in the second tier made those in refereeing circles think Mr Breakspear would join the new Select Group 2 list of referees for last term, but he has instead concentrated on League One and League Two again, possibly for personal and employment-related reasons.
His most recent match was Accrington v Guiseley in the FA Cup last Tuesday and in total this season, Mr Breakspear has refereed 21 games, showing 76 yellow cards and five red.
Those games include two previous Charlton fixtures — their 3-0 home loss to Wigan in September and last month’s 1-1 draw at Oxford.