The familiar figure of Andy Haines will referee Rochdale v Walsall for the second consecutive season on Saturday.
The Tyne & Wear official took charge of The Saddlers’ visit to the Crown Oil Arena in November 2016 and hardly had cause to get involved as Dale romped to their second 4-0 home win in four days.
Four months later he was back in Rochdale as the referee for our 4-1 home defeat of Gillingham, while on the third Saturday of this campaign, Andy refereed Dale’s 3-2 loss at Shrewsbury.
On Saturday, Mr Haines will be taking take charge of his 26th Dale match, which we suspect is probably a record.
Twenty-four of those games have been at the Crown Oil Arena, with the most notable coming on 17th April 2010 when Dale clinched promotion from League Two with a 1-0 victory over Northampton.
The full list of Andy’s Dale matches is:
Sep 07 Rochdale v Macclesfield D 1-1
Jan 08 Chesterfield v Rochdale W 4-3
Apr 08 Rochdale v Bradford W 2-1
Sep 08 Rochdale v Chesterfield W 2-1
Apr 09 Rochdale v Port Vale W 1-0
Jul 09 Rochdale v Everton (friendly) L 1-4
Aug 09 Rochdale v Cheltenham L 0-1
Apr 10 Rochdale v Northampton W 1-0
Jul 10 Rochdale v Bolton (friendly) D 1-1
Oct 10 Rochdale v Yeovil L 0-1
Jan 11 Rochdale v Leyton Orient D 1-1
Jul 11 Rochdale v Leeds (friendly) L 0-1
Aug 11 Rochdale v Huddersfield D 2-2
Nov 11 Rochdale v Preston (JPT) D 1-1 (lost on pens)
Jul 12 Rochdale v Hull (friendly) L 0-1
Sep 12 Rochdale v Burton L 0-1
Feb 13 Rochdale v Chesterfield D 1-1
Jul 13 Rochdale v Blackburn (friendly) D 2-2
Aug 13 Rochdale v Chesterfield D 2-2
Jul 14 Rochdale v Wigan (friendly) W 2-1
Apr 15 Rochdale v Port Vale W 1-0
Jul 15 Rochdale Blackburn (h, friendly), W 2-1
Aug 15 Rochdale v Peterborough W 2-0
Nov 16 Rochdale v Walsall W 4-0
Mar 17 Rochdale v Gillingham W 4-1
Aug 17 Shrewsbury v Rochdale L 2-3
So far this season he has refereed 21 games, showing 63 yellow cards and three red. One of his games was Walsall’s 1-0 home loss to Gillingham last month