Seb Stockbridge travels down from Tyne & Wear to take charge of Dale’s home game against Stevenage on Saturday.
This will be the first time Seb has refereed Dale this term, although we saw him three times last season, including the summer friendly at home to Rotherham.
That was followed by him being in the middle for our goalless draw at Salford and then the 1-0 home defeat to Mansfield in late-March.
Now is in his tenth season on the National List, Saturday is Seb’s 16th Dale game.
His second Football League appointment was our visit to Burton in August 2013, in which Peter Cavanagh was sent-off early in the game, before Dale slumped to a 1-0 defeat courtesy of Olly Lancashire’s own goal.
Twelve months later Seb refereed our 3-3 friendly draw at Bury, while early in 2015/16, he was in charge at the Crown Oil Arena for the visit of Shrewsbury, a game in which Dale raced into a 3-0 lead, before being pegged-back to 3-2 before half-time. Thankfully, there was no further scoring.
We then saw Seb four times in 2017, starting with the first match of the year at Walsall, which ended in a 2-0 victory thanks to goals from Ian Henderson and Joe Thompson.
Two months later he was at Spotland for the thrilling 3-3 draw with Sheffield United and after another month he returned for Dale’s 3-0 midweek defeat of Port Vale as a late replacement for Ben Toner.
Towards the end of 2017, Mr Stockbridge was back at the Crown Oil Arena when Dale entertained Blackburn in the Checkatrade Trophy, a game which ended 1-1 before Keith Hill’s men won on penalties.
In 2018/19 Seb oversaw our FA Cup replay defeat to Portsmouth, while 11 months later, he was again at the Crown Oil Arena in FA Cup action as Dale took on Wrexham, although this time we won 1-0 in the first-round replay.
The full record of his Dale games is:
Aug 2013 Burton (a), L 0-1
Aug 2014 Bury (a, F), D 3-3
Sep 2015 Shrewsbury (h), W 3-2
Jan 2017 Walsall (a), W 1-0
Mar 2017 Sheffield U (h), D 3-3
Apr 2017 Port Vale (h), W 3-0
Nov 2017 Blackburn (h, Checkatrade), D 1-1 [Dale won on pens]
Dec 2018 Portsmouth (h, FAC), L 0-1
Nov 2019 Wrexham (h, FAC), W 1-0
Sep 2020 Sheffield W (h, CC), L 0-2
Jan 2021 Doncaster (a), L 0-1
May 2021 Doncaster (h), L 1-2
Jul 2021 Rotherham (h, F), D 2-2
Oct 2021 Salford (a), D 0-0
Mar 2022 Mansfield (h), L 0-1
Mr Stockbridge’s life on the National List has been fairly uneventful, although last season he was appointed to referee Rotherham United v Sutton United in the Papa John’s Trophy Final at Wembley.
Before Tuesday, when he was due at Lincoln v MK Dons, Seb had overseen 25 matches this season, showing 72 yellow cards and four reds.