Ross Joyce is the man in charge of Dale’s third trip to the Stadium of Light to face Sunderland on Saturday.

This will be the second time we have seen the Cleveland official in a matter of weeks as he was also in the middle for the 4-3 home defeat to Oxford at the end of January.

Twelve months ago this weekend, Ross was the referee when Dale fans were last allowed into stadiums for the home game versus Rotherham.

Dale, of course, won 3-1 that afternoon, which was our first victory in a league fixture with Mr Joyce as the referee.

Ross has refereed 13 previous Dale games, starting with an away match in February 2016 against Crewe.

Alex were 2-0 winners that afternoon, with future Dale player Bradden Inman netting one of their goals.

In the following 2016/17 season, Mr Joyce refereed three Dale matches, two of which ended in a bad way for Niall Canavan.

The Dale defender was sent-off in a 2-2 draw at Bristol Rovers in early-September and then again as we went down 4-0 at Bradford two months later.

It was perhaps just as well that Canavan wasn’t playing when Ross refereed the home game versus Northampton on 1st April 2017!

Mr Joyce’s full list of Dale appointments is:

Feb 16 Crewe (a), L 0-2
Sep 16 Bristol R (a), D 2-2
Nov 16 Bradford (a), L 0-4
Apr 17 Northampton (h), D 1-1
Aug 17 Scunthorpe (h), D 1-1
Dec 17 Doncaster (a), L 0-2
Feb 18 MK Dons (h), D 0-0
Sep 18 Scunthorpe (a), D 3-3
Oct 18 Fleetwood T (a, CT), W 2-0
Jan 19 Man City U21 (h, CT), L 2-4
Sep 19 Lincoln (h), D 1-1
Mar 20 Rotherham (h), W 3-1
Jan 21 Oxford (h), L 3-4

Ross joined the National List in time for the 2015/16 campaign. He had officiated at Conference level for seven seasons before making the step-up, which culminated in him taking charge of the 2014/15 play-off final between Bristol Rovers and Grimsby in front of over 50,000 fans at Wembley.

Onto this this season, where Mr Joyce has refereed 22 games, showing 89 yellow cards and four red. His most recent appointment was Doncaster v Portsmouth on Tuesday.

Photo: Action Images

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