Tom Nield is the man in the middle for Dale’s Easter Monday home game against Hartlepool United.

Coincidentally, the Huddersfield-based official also refereed our away fixture versus Pools in December, a game that ended in a 2-1 defeat for Dale.

Even more coincidentally, Mr Nield’s only other Dale games were our home and away fixtures against Accrington in 2019/20, both matches seeing Brian Barry-Murphy’s men pick up 2-1 victories.

Tom was also due to referee Dale’s home fixture against Bristol Rovers in October 2017, but he was forced to withdraw a couple of days in advance, presumably through injury.

Monday will be his 27th match of the season and up to then he had shown 108 yellow cards and three reds in the previous 26, the most recent of which was Carlisle v Exeter last Saturday.

One final interesting piece of information about Tom is when he made the headlines in the Spring of 2020 when the first lockdown took place, due to his work with the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11970748/tom-nield-the-efl-referee

Photo: Action Images

Rochdale Polls