Dale’s second visit of the season to Tranmere Rovers on Saturday will be refereed by SUNNY SINGH GILL.

The Bracknell-based official is in his fifth season on the National List and Saturday will be his third Dale appointment.

In October 2022, he was at Spotland for Dale’s 2-1 win over Barrow, while the following February, Sunny refereed our 2-1 loss at Leyton Orient.

The prison officer’s first EFL match in the middle was Northampton v Hartlepool in August 2022, which was an appointment that made the headlines when he became the first South Asian referee in the EFL since his father, Jarnail Singh, in 2010.

He officiated mainly in League One and League Two in his first season on the list, before also receiving some Championship games and Crystal Palace v Luton in the Premier League in 2023/24.

The same pattern continued in 2024/25, until Sunny’s season was curtailed through injury in mid-February.

This kept him out for the majority of last term, until he returned on the season’s penultimate weekend at Solihull Moors v Boston United in the National League.

This game turned out to be more eventful than Sunny perhaps expected when Solihull’s Conor Wilkinson was sent-off for “an alleged incident of discrimination towards the referee,” an allegation for which Wilkinson was later cleared.

With his fitness and injury issues now cleared up, Sunny has refereed six games across League Two and the National League this season, the most recent being Yeovil v Worthing at the end of September.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters