Seasoned campaigner Graham Salisbury will referee Dale’s trip to the New York Stadium to face Rotherham on Saturday.
The Preston whistler has been a regular at our fixtures down the years and this will be his 18th Dale appointment in total, two of which were notable 4-2 away wins.
In March 2010 he was the referee for the 4-2 victory at Accrington which, as it transpired, proved to be the game that took Dale up from League Two.
Eighteen months later, in September 2011, Graham took charge of the 4-2 win at bury, in which Nicky Adams scored and was then sent-off for picking up a second yellow card after removing his shirt and waving it round his head!
This is Mr Salisbury’s first Dale match since December 2016 when he was in the middle for the Checkatrade Trophy tie at home to Chesterfield.
That was his fourth Dale appointment in 2016, as he refereed the first game of the year at Walsall when Dale recorded a thoroughly-deserved 3-0 win, while six weeks later he was at the Crown Oil Arena for the visit of Millwall, a game The Lions won 1-0 with a goal that many thought was offside, but was actually nowhere near.
Later in 2016, Graham took charge of Dale’s Checkatrade Trophy group tie at home to Sunderland.
The full list of his Dale matches is:
Oct 01 Rochdale v Southport (LDV) W 2-0
Aug 04 Rochdale v Bury L 0-3
Oct 05 Rochdale v Notts Co W 3-0
Nov 05 Tranmere v Rochdale (LDV) L 2-3
Dec 05 Rochdale v Leyton Orient L 2-4
Apr 06 Notts Co v Rochdale D 1-1
Nov 08 Rochdale v Macclesfield D 1-1
Jul 09 Radcliffe v Rochdale (F) W 1-0
Dec 09 Rochdale v Morecambe W 4-1
Mar 10 Accrington v Rochdale W 4-2
Mar 11 Rochdale v Notts Co W 1-0
Sep 11 Bury v Rochdale W 4-2
Mar 12 Rochdale v Oldham W 3-2
Jan 16 Walsall v Rochdale W 3-0
Feb 16 Rochdale v Millwall L 0-1
Sep 16 Rochdale v Sunderland (CT) D 1-1 (won on pens)
Dec 16 Rochdale v Chesterfield (CT) L 0-2
Other news involving Graham is that his son, Michael Salisbury, is also a member of the National List of referees and was in charge of Dale’s game at Blackburn on Boxing Day.
Meanwhile, Graham has refereed 32 games this term, showing 131 yellow cards and 12 red, one of which was former Dale player Rhys Bennett at Mansfield v Lincoln on Tuesday.
He has actually refereed Rotherham twice since Christmas, most recently in their 2-1 win at Scunthorpe a month ago.