Sam Purkiss will referee Dale for only the third time when we travel to Northampton on Saturday.

The London official is in his fourth season on the National List and his only previous Dale appointments were at Burton in October 2020, where Matty Lund scored in our 1-0 win, and last November’s 0-0 draw at Walsall.

Promoted from the National League at the end of the 2018/19 campaign, Sam began his EFL life at Exeter v Macclesfield in August 2019.

He has continued to referee throughout League One and League Two since then, with several EFL Cup, EFL Trophy and FA Cup ties thrown in for good measure.

This season Sam has refereed six matches, which have yielded 18 yellow cards and one red. His last appointment was Bristol Rovers v Shrewsbury at the end of August.

An interesting aside is that away from football, Mr Purkiss is a lawyer with the firm Harbottle & Lewis. One of his most well-known cases was acting for England cricketer Alex Hales in the disciplinary proceedings brought against him by the ECB in relation to the much publicised incident in Bristol and social media posts.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters