Dale will hope referee Danny McDermid makes another mistake in their favour when he takes charge of Saturday’s game at Yeovil.

The Hampshire-based official was the man in the middle for our game at Brighton in August, when Dale benefited from his incorrect application of the laws.

Fans may remember Dale were awarded a free-kick, but before the kick was taken, Anthony Elding was flattened in the penalty area by Gordon Greer.

The Brighton defender was correctly sent-off, but Mr McDermid awarded Dale a penalty, even though the ball wasn’t in play at the time the offence occurred.

It was an incident that even confused that ‘expert’ Steve Claridge on the Football League Show!

Gary Jones duly scored the penalty and then netted again in injury time following a mistake by the Albion ‘keeper to earn Dale a 2-2 draw.

Dale will hope they produce a better first half performance on Saturday than they did last time referee Danny McDermid was the man in the middle.

Nine months earlier Danny was in charge of our FA Cup tie at Luton when Dale found themselves 3-0 down inside half-an-hour, although fans will remember we staged a remarkable fightback to draw 3-3.

In other league matches, Dale have a 100% record with Danny in charge.

In September 2006 he took charge of our 3-0 win at Boston, while six months later he was the referee for the famous 7-2 thrashing of Stockport at Edgeley Park.

In April 2008 Danny made the trip up from London to Spotland, where he saw Rene Howe’s hat-trick inspire Dale to a 3-1 defeat of Grimsby.

So far this season he has refereed 16 games, showing 55 yellow cards and three red.

His most recent game was the FA Cup third round tie between Wycombe and Hereford.

REFWORLD PROFILE: http://www.refworld.com/referee/151/1

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