Shrewsbury referee Rob Lewis is the man in the middle for Dale’s game at Leyton Orient on Saturday.

Mr Lewis gained his first experience of refereeing at Football League level in October 2005 when he took charge of Dale’s 2-1 home defeat of Rushden & Diamonds.

This was a trial game to assess his suitability for promotion and he went on to referee several other League Two fixtures that season, including another match at Spotland the following April in which Dale lost 2-0 to Darlington.

Mr Lewis was promoted to the league list for real during the summer of 2006 and he again appeared at Spotland in the following April for the 0-0 draw with Swindon.

Rob suffered from injury problems in 2007/08, but refereed at Spotland on New Year’s Day when Darlington were beaten 3-1 and had Alan White sent-off for good measure and general hilarity!

Those injuries and poor marks saw Mr Lewis drop off the league list for the next two seasons, but he was promoted again in 2010 and is now in his 12th year back at this level.

His first Dale game after promotion was the 0-0 draw at Cheltenham in January 2013 which marked Keith Hill’s return to the club.

Twelve months later Rob was in the middle as we won 3-0 at Hartlepool, while in January 2017 he refereed our 2-1 loss at Southend.

Mr Lewis’s most recent Dale appointment was on Easter Monday last April when he was a late replacement for the ill Chris Sarginson at our 0-0 home draw with Ipswich.

Full list of Dale appointments:

Oct 05 v Rushden & Diamonds (h), W 2-1
Apr 06 v Darlington (h), L 0-2
Apr 07 v Swindon (h), D 0-0
Jan 08 v Darlington (h), W 3-1
Jan 13 v Cheltenham (a), D 0-0
Jan 14 v Hartlepool (a), W 3-0
Jan 17 v Southend (a), L 1-2
Mar 18 v Walsall (a), W 3-0
Oct 19 v MK Dons (h), W 2-0
Aug 20 v Port Vale (a, F), L 1-2
Apr 21 v Ipswich (h), D 0-0

So far this season Rob has refereed 25 games, in which he has shown 79 yellow cards and two reds. His most recent appointment was Bolton v Plymouth last Saturday.

Photo: Action Images

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