Referee James Adcock is the man in the middle for Dale’s home game against Portsmouth on Saturday.

The Nottinghamshire official has been on the National List since 2011, but this is the first time we have seen him at a Dale fixture in over four years.

That last appointment was back in September 2015 when James took charge of Dale’s 3-1 defeat at Millwall.

Prior to that he was in the middle at Bristol City in February 2015, where Aaron Wilbraham’s header gave The Robins a 1-0 win over Keith Hill’s Rochdale side.

His most recent appearance at the Crown Oil Arena was seven years ago, in October 2012, when Mr Adcock dismissed Dale’s Bobby Grant in a 0-0 draw with Bradford.

His full list of Dale appointments is:

Oct 2011 Leyton Orient (h), L 0-2
Jan 2012 Hartlepool (a), L 0-2
Apr 2012 Yeovil (a), L 1-3
Oct 2012 Bradford (h), D 0-0
May 2014 Newport (a), L 1-2
Feb 2015 Bristol City (a), L 0-1
Sep 2015 Millwall (a), L 1-3

James made an impressive start to his career at National List level by refereeing League Two play-off semi-finals at the end of his first two campaigns, which led to a high number of Championship appointments in 2013/14 and 2014/15.

He joined the new Select Group 2 list of officials ahead of the 2016/17 season and was widely tipped to move up to the Premier League, until injury problems sidelined him for the whole of 2017/18 and the majority of last term.

He has returned to action this season, albeit now without his SG2 status, and in total has refereed nine matches since August, showing 33 yellow cards and two red.

Photo: Action Images

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