Alan Young will referee Dale’s opening league game of the season at Swindon on Saturday.

The Ely-based official, who is originally from Blackpool, is in his third season on the referees’ list and has previously refereed only two Dale matches.

In January 2019, Alan was in charge of Dale’s 2-1 loss at Barnsley, while two months later he was in the middle for our 1-1 draw at Gillingham.

In refereeing those game, Mr Young joined the likes of William Burns, Keith Hill and Michael Oliver in a rather unique Dale-referee related list!

Alan was also due to officiate at what was our last away league fixture at Portsmouth in February, only for him to swap to Bristol Rovers v Shrewsbury a couple of days in advance.

That was Mr Young’s 29th appointment of last season, with those games yielding 142 yellow cards and five red.

Eleven of those yellow cards came at the Ipswich v Wycombe encounter in November.

Like Dale, Alan was also in action in the Carabao Cup last weekend when he refereed Peterborough v Cheltenham.

Photo: Action Images

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