Cheshire official Mark Heywood will referee Saturday’s Lancashire derby at home to Fleetwood, which might cause confusion among fans who like to keep track of this sort of thing.

That’s because Mark Heywood, with an ‘E’, shouldn’t be confused with West Yorkshire’s Mark Haywood, with an ‘A’, who has refereed many Dale games down the years.

We last saw Mr Heywood in February at the home fixture against Sheffield United, which Dale won 2-0 despite being dominated for the opening 45 minutes.

Fans will remember that game for the goals from Peter Vincenti and Grant Holt, who were both inspired half-time substitutions by Keith Hill.

Mark’s previous league appointment involving Dale before that was the 3-0 win at Northampton in March 2014 in which the only blot on our copybook was when Matty Lund received a second yellow card for celebrating with the fans after scoring a fine diving header.

Later that year Mr Heywood refereed a 1-0 home loss to Walsall in the JPT, while in November 2012 he was at Spotland for the dreadful 1-0 defeat by Morecambe in an FA Cup first round replay.

The full list of Dale games refereed by Mark is:

Jul 09 Manchester U (h, F), L 0-2

Oct 11 Wycombe (h), W 2-1

Jul 12 Radcliffe (a, F), L 1-2

Nov 12 Morecambe (h, FAC), L 0-1

Mar 14 Northampton (a), W 3-0

Oct 14 Walsall (h, JPT), L 0-1

Feb 16 Sheffield U (h), W 2-0

So far this season Mr Heywood has refereed eight games, showing 36 yellow cards and one red.

His most recent fixture was Oldham v Chesterfield last Saturday.

Photo: Action Images

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