Second year referee Geoff Eltringham is the man in the middle for Friday night’s FA Cup tie with FC United.

This is an appointment which Keith Hill won’t relish, as he was highly critical of Mr Eltringham in September 2009 when he refereed Dale’s 2-1 home defeat by Bradford in the JPT.

However, he gave an assured performance in Dale’s Carling Cup tie at Barnsley in August, so maybe a year on the league list has seen his abilities at this level reach a more acceptable standard.

Certainly being appointed to a live televised match would support this view.

So far this season Geoff has refereed 11 games, showing 42 yellow cards and six red.

His most recent match was the League 2 game between Morecambe and Stockport on Tuesday, while a fortnight ago he refereed Preston’s thrilling 4-3 win over Crystal Palace, which was only Geoff’s second Championship level fixture.

His first was at Turf Moor in August where Burnley defeated Leicester 3-0.

If you like Geoff’s performance, then why not add him as a friend on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Geoff-Eltringham/535107595

class="storytext">REFWORLD PROFILE: http://www.refworld.com/referee/2371/1

D_Dale added 12:26 - Nov 4 According to Soccerbase, it is 7 red cards in 12 matches (on Tuesday he sent of a Stockport player called Simpson - Simmo's son? - in the 8th minute). Hillcroft will need to impress on the players: 'there's a card-wielding obsessive out there tonight - so watch your behaviour!'
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Syke_Dale added 12:27 - Nov 4 11 games, 42 yellow and six red. This bloke sounds a bit keen, good of the FA to give him what could potentially be a highly-charged local derby, calm heads and all that, whereas his statistics don't suggest that or maybe he's stickler for the rules.
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Syke_Dale added 12:28 - Nov 4 11 games, 42 yellow and six red. This bloke sounds a bit keen, good of the FA to give him what could potentially be a highly-charged local derby, calm heads and all that, whereas his statistics don't suggest that or maybe he's stickler for the rules.
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TVOS1907 added 12:51 - Nov 4 but without knowing what the cards were for, its hard to make such judgements. Anyway, simpsons son handled a shot on the line so it was an obvious red. And it was simpsons son, so another reason for an obvious red!
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pedrodale added 18:43 - Nov 5 Just hope he dosent get carried away with himself and go for a fairytail ending. Seriousley though she should have given son of simmo 2 reds
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pedrodale added 23:35 - Nov 5 And He did
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