Shrewsbury referee Rob Lewis is the man in the middle for Dale’s home game versus MK Dons on Tuesday.

Mr Lewis gained his first experience of refereeing at Football League level in October 2005 when he took charge of Dale’s 2-1 home defeat of Rushden & Diamonds.

This was a trial game to assess his suitability for promotion and he went on to referee several other League Two fixtures that season, including another match at Spotland the following April in which Dale lost 2-0 to Darlington.

Mr Lewis was promoted to the league list for real during the summer of 2006 and he again appeared at Spotland in the following April for the 0-0 draw with Swindon.

Rob suffered from injury problems in 2007/08, but refereed at Spotland on New Year’s Day when Darlington were beaten 3-1 and had Alan White sent-off for good measure and general hilarity!

Those injuries and poor marks saw Mr Lewis drop off the league list for the next two seasons, but he was promoted again in 2010 and is now in his tenth year back at this level.

His first Dale game after promotion was the 0-0 draw at Cheltenham in January 2013 which marked Keith Hill’s return to the club.

Twelve months later Rob was in the middle as we won 3-0 at Hartlepool, while in January 2017 he refereed our 2-1 loss at Southend.

His most recent Dale appointment was in March 2018, a week after the FA Cup replay against Spurs at Wembley, when Mr Lewis took charge of the 3-0 win at Walsall.

So far this season Rob has refereed 10 games, in which he has shown 45 yellow cards and three red. His most recent appointment was Swindon v Plymouth on 12th October.

Photo: Action Images

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