Martin Coy is the man in the middle for Dale’s EFL Trophy home tie versus Manchester United U21 on Tuesday.

We last saw the County Durham official, who is in his fourth season on the list, in November when he refereed Dale’s 2-1 home defeat to Bristol Rovers.

Prior to that, Mr Coy was at Spotland for the 2019/20 pre-season friendly versus Huddersfield, a game The Terriers won 3-1 and one in which they opted to wear their Paddy Power sponsored shirts as part of a publicity stunt.

Martin was also the referee at Doncaster on New Year’s Day 2019, where he oversaw an abject performance by Dale as Rovers romped to a 5-0 win.

Earlier in that season, Coy was in the middle at the Crown Oil Arena for the 3-0 defeat of Gillingham in which Ian Henderson scored his only hat-trick for the club.

And although we don’t believe in coincidences, when Hendo netted his hat-trick for Salford at Grimsby recently, guess who the referee was? That’s right, Martin Coy!

Returning to Dale, Martin took charge of two of our games in 2017/18, which was his debut campaign on the National List.

He refereed the Checkatrade Trophy group game at home to Stoke City U21 at the start of October, a match that ended in a goalless draw, before Stoke won 5-4 on penalties.

Seven weeks later, Mr Coy was back at the Crown Oil Arena for the League One fixture versus Peterborough, although on this occasion he was a replacement for the original referee.

Dale were 2-0 winners that afternoon thanks to goals from Calvin Andrew and Callum Camps.

Photo: Action Images

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