Dale’s first home game of the season against Doncaster on Saturday will be officiated by a headline writer’s dream in the shape of Leicestershire referee Trevor Kettle.

References to whistling and things boiling over are sure to surface, especially if Mr Kettle grabs the headlines as he has been prone to do down the years.

He joined the league list in 2003 and one of his first appointments was Dale’s fine 3-1 win at Torquay in which Robert Betts scored twice and Michael Simpkins was sent-off.

Later that term Trevor was the referee for the famous ‘goose game’ at Scunthorpe, where the invading bird was one of the few performers on the pitch not to be shown a yellow card — Mr Kettle ridiculously booking 11 players having made a rod for his own back early in the match.

Trevor’s most recent Dale appointment was last September when he refereed our 4-1 defeat at Sunderland, while we last saw him at the Crown Oil Arena in March 2018 when Dale were beaten 2-0 by Fleetwood.

The full list of his Dale appointments is:

Aug 03 Torquay v Rochdale W 3-1
Apr 04 Scunthorpe v Rochdale D 2-2
Oct 06 Rochdale v Stockport L 1-3
Feb 09 Rochdale v Grimsby W 2-0
Jan 12 Rochdale v Preston D 1-1
Oct 12 Rochdale v Oxford W 2-0
Apr 14 Mansfield v Rochdale L 0-3
Jan 15 Rochdale v Crawley W 4-1
Dec 15 Rochdale v Colchester W 3-1
Nov 16 Gillingham v Rochdale L 0-3
Mar 18 Rochdale v Fleetwood L 0-2
Sep 18 Sunderland v Rochdale L 1-4

This is Mr Kettle’s first match of this season, but in 41 games last term he showed 171 yellow cards and seven red.

Photo: Action Images

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