Ross Joyce is the man in charge of Dale’s home game against Carlisle United on Saturday.

The Cleveland official has been a regular at our matches since joining the National List in 2015 and Saturday will be his 17th Dale appointment and the tenth at Spotland.

We first saw Mr Joyce at Crewe in February 2016, where Dale went down to a 2-0 defeat, before he refereed us twice in the early months of the following season.

In September 2016, Ross was in the middle at Bristol Rovers, where Dale picked-up a point from a 2-2 draw after playing much of the match with ten men after the sending-off of Niall Canavan.

Two months later, Canavan was again dismissed by Mr Joyce in a 4-0 thrashing at Bradford.

Ross was also the referee in March 2020 when Dale defeated Rotherham 3-1 at home in their final game before football shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

His most recent Dale appointment was the remarkable 4-3 home defeat to Bristol Rovers at the end of last season, in which the visitors turned round a 3-1 deficit to put one foot in League One.

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
Mar 21 Sunderland (a), L 0-2
Jul 21 Luton (a, F), L 0-4
Nov 21 Notts Co (h, FAC), D 1-1
Apr 22 Bristol R (h), L 3-4

So far this this season, Ross has refereed 17 games, showing 58 yellow cards and three reds. His last match was Shrewsbury v Fleetwood on New Year’s Day, although he has seen some games in the meantime postponed due to the weather.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters