Referee Neil Hair will appear at Spotland on this weekend for the second year running when he officiates Saturday’s fixture versus Northampton Town.
The Peterborough-based official is in his fifth season on the National List and Saturday will be the fourth time we have seen him at a Dale match.
Just before Christmas 2018, Neil was in the middle for Dale’s 2-1 win at Southend, which came courtesy of a late Callum Camps’ goal.
We next saw him at Doncaster in February 2020, where Ollie Rathbone scored a late equaliser in a 1-1 draw, just a month before all football stopped due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Twelve months ago, he made his Spotland debut when refereeing Dale’s 3-3 draw versus Harrogate.
Mr Hair’s first EFL appointment was Oldham v MK Dons in August 2018 and since then he has refereed entirely in the two basement divisions, as well as a number of games in all three cup competitions.
His matches have tended to be controversy-free and Neil is certainly not one of those referees whose name keeps cropping-up in managers’ post-match comments.
Saturday will be his 18th game of this season, with the previous 17 yielding 65 yellow cards and five reds.
Neil’s most recent match was Newport v Swindon last weekend.