Cumbrian referee Anthony Backhouse will officiate Dale’s game at Mansfield Town on Easter Monday.
The Carlisle official is in his sixth season on the National List and this will be his 11th Dale appointment, although one of those games never took place!
We first saw Mr Backhouse on New Year’s Day 2018 when he refereed the 2-1 home loss to Blackpool, which turned into a thoroughly miserable affair played in pouring rain on an increasingly flooded pitch!
Anthony then returned to the Crown Oil Arena on the second weekend of 2018/19 for our 4-1 loss to Peterborough.
He was the fourth official in early January 2019 at the 4-0 home defeat by Burton and two months later, Mr Backhouse took charge of the 0-0 midweek home draw with Oxford, which was Brian Barry-Murphy’s second game as Dale caretaker-manager.
In 2019/20 we saw Anthony at the 3-2 win at Tranmere on the campaign’s opening day and he was also due to referee the return fixture with Rovers in March, only for it to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In February 2021, the Cumbrian whistler was the fourth official at Dale’s 2-0 home loss to Charlton, before refereeing our 1-0 defeat at Blackpool ten days later.
In November 2021, he was back at the Crown Oil Arena for the 2-2 draw with Leyton Orient, while earlier this season, Mr Backhouse was in the middle as Dale drew 2-2 with Salford in the Papa John’s Trophy, before losing on penalties.
Anthony joined the National List in 2017 after receiving the ultimate accolade in non-league football when he refereed Forest Green v Tranmere in the 2016/17 National League play-off final at Wembley.
He has since been in charge of a large number of matches in League One and League Two, although over the Christmas period, Backhouse was appointed to Coventry v Cardiff in the Championship as a trial game to test his suitability for potential promotion to the Select Group 2 list.
Anthony’s last game was Grimsby v Hartlepool on Friday, before which he had refereed 29 matches this season, showing 101 yellow cards and one red.