In a rather strange geographical appointment, Wiltshire referee Sam Allison will be in charge of Dale’s home fixture versus Wiltshire outfit Swindon Town on Tuesday!
This will be his second visit to Spotland this season as Sam also refereed our 2-0 home defeat to Lincoln in December.
Mr Allison was a regular at matches in the National League over the past four campaigns, before making the step-up to EFL level last summer.
His promotion made the headlines as he became the first black referee in the professional game since Uriah Rennie 11 years ago. (Sam Allison: Referee 'proud' of promotion to EFL - BBC Sport)
A former semi-professional player who works in the fire service, Mr Allison’s first EFL appointment was Exeter v Forest Green in the Papa John’s Trophy, before he made his league bow at Port Vale v Crawley on the opening day of the season.
He has since refereed all over the country, with the M6 getting some hammer a couple of months ago when he had games at Fleetwood, Wigan and Morecambe in the space of eight days!
He will, of course, be back on the M6 on Tuesday, having already travelled on it on Saturday to referee Bolton v Harrogate.
That was scheduled to be his 30th game of the season, with the previous 29 yielding 81 yellow cards and one red.