Notts County are the visitors to Spotland this weekend, and in doing so, we'll have Midlands based official Andy Hall in charge of the game.

Saturday’s referee is one of the Football League’s longest serving officials, yet one we haven’t seen at Spotland for four years.

Andy Hall from Birmingham is the man in the middle and he was last at Spotland in October 2003 when Dale lost 2-0 at home to Luton in the FA Cup.

He awarded the Hatters two penalties that day, one of which was missed, although the game will be remembered more for Michael Simpkins’ fall out with someone in the WMG Stand.

In total Andy has refereed eight previous Dale, including FOUR in his first season on the league list.

One of those, ironically, came against Saturday’s visitors, Notts County, when they visited Spotland for their 4000th league fixture in January 1998.

The full list is:

4 Oct 1997 Rochdale v Scunthorpe U D3 Won 2-0
15 Nov 1997 Rochdale v Wrexham FAC Lost 0-2
10 Jan 1998 Rochdale v Notts Co D3 Lost 1-2
14 Mar 1998 Lincoln C v Rochdale D3 Lost 0-2
26 Dec 1998 Rochdale v Carlisle U D3 Drew 1-1
29 Jan 2000 Exeter C v Rochdale D3 Lost 0-2
6 Dec 2003 Rochdale v Luton T FAC Lost 0-2
7 May 2005 Boston U v Rochdale L2 Drew 1-1

It looks like we’re due a win with Mr Hall in the middle!

Andy is one of those referees who keeps cropping up on live Sky games, when he usually makes one or two ridiculous decisions that give Peter Beagrie something to witter on about.

Nonetheless, he keeps getting plenty of games at Championship level and only last week refereed the match between Bristol City and Ipswich.

He also has a penchant for dishing out cards and this season his 18 games have seen 70 yellow cards and 6 red.


Other famous Andys

Andy Flounders
Andy Thackeray
Andy Murray
Andy Pandy
Andy Pipkin


Other famous Halls

Town
Albert
Stuart
Derek
Dance
 

Photo: Action Images

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