Shrewsbury referee Rob Lewis is the man in the middle for Dale’s home game versus Mansfield on Saturday.

Mr Lewis gained his first experience of refereeing at Football League level in October 2005 when he took charge of Dale’s 2-1 home defeat of Rushden & Diamonds.

This was a trial game to assess his suitability for promotion and he went on to referee several other League Two fixtures that season, including another match at Spotland the following April in which Dale lost 2-0 to Darlington.

Rob was promoted to the league list for real during the summer of 2006 and he again appeared at Spotland in the following April for the 0-0 draw with Swindon.

Injury problems blighted his time over the next few seasons, but Rob refereed at Spotland on New Year’s Day 2008 when Darlington were beaten 3-1 and had Alan White sent-off for good measure and general hilarity!

Those injuries saw Rob drop off the league list for the next two years, but he was promoted again in 2010 and is now in his 13th year back at this level.

His first Dale game after promotion was the 0-0 draw at Cheltenham in January 2013 which marked Keith Hill’s return to the club.

Twelve months later Rob was in the middle as we won 3-0 at Hartlepool, while in January 2017 he refereed our 2-1 loss at Southend.

Mr Lewis’s most recent Dale appointment was on Good Friday when he oversaw the disappointing 1-0 loss at Stevenage.

Full list of Dale appointments:

Oct 05 v Rushden & Diamonds (h), W 2-1
Apr 06 v Darlington (h), L 0-2
Apr 07 v Swindon (h), D 0-0
Jan 08 v Darlington (h), W 3-1
Jan 13 v Cheltenham (a), D 0-0
Jan 14 v Hartlepool (a), W 3-0
Jan 17 v Southend (a), L 1-2
Mar 18 v Walsall (a), W 3-0
Oct 19 v MK Dons (h), W 2-0
Aug 20 v Port Vale (a, F), L 1-2
Apr 21 v Ipswich (h), D 0-0
Apr 22 v Stevenage (a), L 0-1

Before Tuesday night, when he was due at AFC Wimbledon v Leyton Orient, Rob had refereed 13 games this term, showing 45 yellow cards and one red. One of his matches was Alvechurch’s FA Cup giant-killing at Cheltenham last Saturday.

Photo: Action Images

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