Martin Coy is the man in the middle for Saturday’s home game versus Bristol Rovers on Saturday.
We last saw the County Durham official, who is in his third season on the referees’ list, in July when he refereed the 3-1 friendly home defeat to Huddersfield.
Fans may remember that game was shrouded in controversy when The Terriers opted to wear their Paddy Power sponsored shirts as part of a publicity stunt.
Before that, Mr Coy’s last league game involving Dale was at Doncaster on New Year’s Day, where he oversaw an abject performance by the visitors as Rovers romped to a 5-0 win.
Earlier last season Martin was in the middle at the Crown Oil Arena for the 3-0 defeat of Gillingham in which Ian Henderson scored his only treble for the club.
In 2017/18 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, 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.
So far this term, Coy has had 10 appointments, in which he has shown 45 yellow cards. His last game was Crawley v Colchester in League Two three weeks ago.