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Refwatch: Crawley Town v Rochdale

Dale’s first game at Crawley in eight years will be officiated on Saturday by a headline writer’s dream in the shape of Leicestershire referee Trevor Kettle.

References to whistling and things boiling over are sure to surface, especially if Mr Kettle grabs the headlines as he was prone to do in his earlier years on the league list.

He joined the league list back in 2003 and one of his first appointments was Dale’s fine 3-1 win at Torquay in which Robert Betts scored twice and Michael Simpkins was sent-off.

Later that term Trevor was the referee for the famous ‘goose game’ at Scunthorpe, where the invading bird was one of the few performers on the pitch not to be shown a yellow card — Mr Kettle ridiculously booking 11 players having made a rod for his own back early in the match.

However, as time has gone on, Trevor appears to be mellowing and although he can still produce random penalties and red cards on the EFL Highlights shows, these are much less frequent than in the past.

His most recent Dale appointment was in January 2021 when he refereed our 4-4 draw at Charlton and if we want a lucky omen, Kettle was in the middle for Dale’s 4-1 home win over Saturday’s opponents back in January 2015.

The full list of Trevor’s Dale appointments is:

Aug 03 Torquay v Rochdale W 3-1
Apr 04 Scunthorpe v Rochdale D 2-2
Oct 06 Rochdale v Stockport L 1-3
Feb 09 Rochdale v Grimsby W 2-0
Jan 12 Rochdale v Preston D 1-1
Oct 12 Rochdale v Oxford W 2-0
Apr 14 Mansfield v Rochdale L 0-3
Jan 15 Rochdale v Crawley W 4-1
Dec 15 Rochdale v Colchester W 3-1
Nov 16 Gillingham v Rochdale L 0-3
Mar 18 Rochdale v Fleetwood L 0-2
Sep 18 Sunderland v Rochdale L 1-4
Aug 19 Rochdale v Doncaster D 1-1
Nov 19 Wrexham v Rochdale (FAC) D 0-0
Jan 21 Charlton v Rochdale D 4-4


Before Tuesday, when he was due at Port Vale v Exeter, Mr Kettle had refereed 20 matches this season, in which he showed 77 yellow cards and six reds.

All but one of those games were up to the end of 2021, suggesting he has suffered from injury problems over recent months.

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