James Oldham will referee Dale for only the third time when they visit Port Vale in the Papa John’s Trophy on Tuesday night.

Coincidentally, all of his Dale games have been in the first week of October!

The Derbyshire whistler was in the middle at AFC Wimbledon this time two years ago, where a patched-up Dale side had the likes of Calvin Andrew in central defence as they went down to a 3-2 defeat to The Dons.

James was then at the Crown Oil Arena at the start of last October for Dale’s home game versus Fleetwood.

A late Fabio Tavares goal handed Dale a 2-1 win that afternoon, although they weren’t successful again on home soil until April after a dreadful run of form that didn’t seem to bother the manager of the time!

James is in his third season on the National List having been promoted after just one campaign refereeing in the National League.

However, that season culminated in the ultimate non-league appointment when he refereed Salford v AFC Fylde in the play-off final at Wembley.

This term has seen Mr Oldham handle six games, although they were all in August; presumably he has been out of action through injury.

The six appointments produced 29 yellow cards, with ten of them coming at Stevenage v Barrow on the opening day of the season.

Photo: Action Images

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