Ross Joyce is the man in charge of Dale’s first home midweek game of 2021 against Oxford United on Tuesday.

He was due at Spotland last month for the match against Crewe, but after that game was postponed, Joyce was replaced by Andy Haines for the rearrangement.

This is quite a nostalgic appointment for Dale fans as Ross was the referee when we were last allowed into stadiums in March for the home game versus Rotherham.

Dale, of course, won 3-1 that afternoon, which was our first victory in a league fixture with Mr Joyce as the referee.

Ross has refereed 12 previous Dale games, starting with an away match in February 2016 against Crewe.

Alex were 2-0 winners that afternoon, with future Dale player Bradden Inman netting one of their goals.

In the following 2016/17 season, Mr Joyce refereed three Dale matches, two of which ended in a bad way for Niall Canavan.

The Dale defender was sent-off in a 2-2 draw at Bristol Rovers in early-September and then again as we went down 4-0 at Bradford two months later.

It was perhaps just as well that Canavan wasn’t playing when Ross refereed the home game versus Northampton on 1st April 2017!

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

Ross joined the National List in time for the 2015/16 campaign. He had officiated at Conference level for seven seasons before making the step-up, which culminated in him taking charge of the 2014/15 play-off final between Bristol Rovers and Grimsby in front of over 50,000 fans at Wembley.

Onto this this season, where Mr Joyce has refereed 17 games, showing 70 yellow cards and three red.

Photo: Action Images

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