Dale will cross swords with a new referee on Saturday when Paul Tierney takes charge of the Lancashire derby at home to Preston.

The Wigan-based official is in his sixth season on the referees’ list, but this will be his first appointment as the man in the middle at a Dale game.

However, he was on the line for two of the most memorable Rochdale matches of modern times.

In September 2007, Paul was one of the assistants for the 3-2 home win over MK Dons in which Dale scored twice in injury time to clinch the points.

Eight months later, he returned for the play-off semi-final second leg against Darlington when we all remember Dale winning on penalties to get to Wembley.

Mr Tierney has quickly climbed the ladder since his promotion and last season refereed the League Two play-off semi-final second leg between Southend and Burton.

However, all the above appointments were surpassed earlier this term when Paul was put in charge of Swansea v WBA in the Premier League as part of a trial scheme for officials with the potential to progress to the top flight.

He followed that up with the big East Midlands meeting between twice former European Champions, Nottingham Forest, and Derby, as well as the Capital One Cup third round tie, Manchester City v Sheffield Wednesday.

In total this term Mr Tierney has officiated at 13 games, showing 40 yellow cards and four red.

His most recent league appointment was Hartlepool v Luton a fortnight ago in which a certain Richard Wild was running the line, while on Tuesday he refereed the Capital One Cup fourth round tie between Bournemouth and WBA.

Photo: Action Images

D_Dale added 18:25 - Oct 30 An online search shows quite a few criticisms of Mr T. (who does seem to find it hard to keep his cards in his pocket). He's even upset Neil Warnock: 'Every game we write a report on the ref. It is how we are supposed to get rid of our frustrations! I take this seriously and try to be constructive though my missus thinks I am absolutely daft. As she says, "They will never change." On Thursday I spent an hour of my life writing the report, it was a three-page essay full of advice for Mr Tierney. These are supposed to be confidential yet I know of cases where my criticisms have been passed on, which is bound to affect the referee when he next does a game with my team. This time I put at the end, "Please pass a copy on to him." Will it make any difference? The head of referees is Mike Riley who was exactly the same when he was a ref, so what do you think?'

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TVOS1907 added 13:12 - Oct 31 I think we should take what Warnock says with a large pinch of salt.
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