Dale will meet a new referee on Tuesday when Chris Kavanagh takes charge of their League One fixture at Bolton.

The Ashton-under-Lyne official is in his only his third season on the referees’ list, but he has made great strides in that time and is already a Select Group 2 match official.

This means he mainly referees in the Championship, where he has taken charge of 18 games this season. They include the fierce local derby between Derby and Nottingham Forest in December, in which The Rams cruised to a 3-0 win.

Mr Kavanagh’s progress was shown by EFL Cup appointments at Everton, Stoke and Southampton earlier in the campaign, while he also refereed Norwich v Southampton in the third round of the FA Cup.

On Friday night Chris was in charge of Sheffield Wednesday v Birmingham and on Saturday afternoon he was the fourth official at Derby v Bristol City.

He has refereed one previous Dale match, which was the pre-season friendly at Stalybridge in July 2013 when Matty Done scored a hat-trick in our 3-0 win.

All told this season, Chris has been in the middle at 26 matches, in which he has shown 92 yellow cards and two red.

Photo: Action Images

Rochdale Polls