Bedfordshire referee Pat Miller takes charge of a Dale game for the first time in almost three years when we visit Yeovil on Saturday.

Mr Miller was in charge of the dreadful 3-0 defeat at Wycombe in January 2012 which spelled the end of Chris Beech’s spell as caretaker-manager and preceded John Coleman arriving at the club.

Prior to that we had seen Pat at Charlton on Easter Monday 2011, where Dale lost 3-1, while he also refereed the final game of 2006/07 at Peterborough, which fans will recall finished in a 3-3 draw after Dale had trailed 3-1.

However, the match will also be remembered for the disgraceful scenes at the final whistle when Posh fans invaded the pitch and one of them decided to take a swing at Dale’s on-loan midfielder Glenn Poole.

Just a couple of months earlier, Mr Miller was in the middle for a fairly dire 0-0 draw at Hereford, but more memorably he was the referee for Dale’s 4-1 win at Leyton Orient in August 2005, which was only his second game in the Football League.

So far this season Pat has refereed eight games, showing 21 yellow cards and one red.

His most recent appointment was Plymouth v Carlisle last weekend

Photo: Action Images

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