Martin Coy will referee Dale for the second time this season when we play our first game of 2019 at Doncaster on Tuesday.
The County Durham official, who is in his second season on the referees’ list, was in the middle for the 3-0 home defeat of Gillingham in September in which Ian Henderson scored his first career hat-trick.
Last term we saw Mr Coy twice in the space of two months.
He refereed the Checkatrade Trophy group game at home to Stoke City U21 at the start of October 2017, a match that ended in a goalless draw, before Stoke won 5-4 on penalties.
Seven weeks later, Martin was back at the Crown Oil Arena for the League One fixture versus Peterborough, although on this occasion he was a replacement for the original referee.
Dale were 2-0 winners over Posh thanks to goals from Calvin Andrew and Callum Camps.
Before the festive fixtures, which for the headteacher meant Oldham v Exeter and Scunthorpe v Luton, Martin had refereed 20 games this season, showing 52 yellow cards and two red.
One of those 20 matches was Doncaster’s 2-1 home defeat of Bradford in September.