James Oldham will officiate at a Dale game for the second consecutive weekend when he referees Saturday’s home encounter with Carlisle.
The reason for that becomes clearer when you find out he was the fourth official for last Saturday’s match against Oldham at Boundary Park!
However, James has already refereed Dale this season, as he took charge of our Papa John’s Trophy game at Port Vale in October.
We first saw the Derbyshire whistler in the middle at AFC Wimbledon in October 2019 where a patched-up Dale side had the likes of Calvin Andrew in central defence as they went down to a 3-2 defeat to The Dons.
James was then at the Crown Oil Arena at the start of October 2020 for Dale’s home game versus Fleetwood.
A late Fabio Tavares goal handed Dale a 2-1 win that afternoon, although they weren’t successful again on home soil until April after a dreadful run of form that didn’t seem to bother the manager of the time!
Mr Oldham is in his third season on the National List having been promoted after just one campaign refereeing in the National League.
That season culminated in the ultimate non-league appointment when James refereed Salford v AFC Fylde in the play-off final at Wembley.
This term has seen him handle 21 games, which have produced 81 yellow cards and three reds. His most recent appointment in the middle was AFC Wimbledon v Portsmouth on 18th January.