James Oldham will officiate at a Dale game for the third time in two months when he referees Tuesday’s home encounter with Carlisle.

The reason for that becomes clearer when you find out he was the fourth official for our match against Oldham at Boundary Park in January and then performed the same role at the home game versus Salford City a fortnight ago!

However, James has already refereed Dale this season, as he took charge of our Papa John’s Trophy tie at Port Vale in October.

We first saw the Derbyshire whistler in the middle at AFC Wimbledon in October 2019 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 October 2020 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 the following April after a dreadful run of form that didn’t seem to bother the manager of the time!

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

That season culminated in the ultimate non-league appointment when James refereed Salford v AFC Fylde in the 2018/19 play-off final at Wembley.

This term has seen him handle 25 games, which have produced 92 yellow cards and three reds. His most recent appointment in the middle was Wigan v Morecambe on 19th March.

Photo: Action Images

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