Garry Sutton becomes the second Lincolnshire-based referee to take charge of Rochdale v Brentford this year, as Darren Drysdale was the man in the middle when The Bees won at Spotland in April.

This will be only Mr Sutton’s second game at Spotland, with his last coming way back in August 2005 when Dale drew 1-1 with Cheltenham and had Neil Brisco sent-off.

That, incidentally, was Garry’s second game at league level.

We last saw him at Walsall in February for a rather dour 0-0 draw, but Mr Sutton’s previous Dale game before that was the supposed promotion-clincher at Torquay in April 2010, which saw around 1,000 Dale fans descend on Plainmoor waiting for over 40 years of hurt to end.

No more needs to be said as everyone will remember the outcome!

We had also met Garry earlier that season when he was the man in the middle for Dale’s U2/glass-induced 2-1 defeat at Rotherham.

Mr Sutton was dropped from the league list at the end of the 2006/07 campaign for poor marks, but he fought his way back to such an extent that he refereed the 2009 Blue Square Premier play-off final between Torquay and Cambridge.

His last Dale game in his first spell on the list was in November 2006 when Tresor Kandol scored a hat-trick as we lost 3-2 at Barnet.

He was also in charge at Wrexham on Boxing Day 2005, when a bizarre penalty awarded against Gareth Griffiths in Dale’s 2-1 defeat probably explains why he only lasted another 18 months on the league list!

So far this season Mr Sutton has refereed 17 games, showing 51 yellow cards and five red.

His last outing was at the FA Cup tie between Leyton Orient and Bromley.

Photo: Action Images

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