Dale’s fifth meeting with Altrincham in 2025 on Friday night will be refereed by PETER WRIGHT.

The Liverpool official is in his eighth season on the National List and this will be his sixth Dale game since elevating to that level and his eighth Dale appointment in total as the man in the middle.

We last saw Peter in November 2022 when he refereed the 1-0 home win over Salford City in which Ian Henderson broke the club’s all-time goalscoring record.

Earlier in that campaign he took charge of our 3-3 draw at Accrington in the Papa John’s Trophy, which was Jim Bentley’s first game as Dale manager.

In August 2019, Mr Wright he refereed Dale’s 2-1 home win over Carlisle in the Carabao Cup, while in November 2018, Peter was at Spotland for another 2-1 victory, this time versus Gateshead in the FA Cup.

Four months earlier, he had been in the middle for Dale’s pre-season friendly at Tranmere, which ended in a comfortable 3-1 win for Keith Hill’s men.

The police officer also refereed our friendly at Marine in July 2012, which ended in rather bizarre circumstances just after 9.00pm!

Dale were 1-0 up, but with the light fading and Marine keen to save on the electricity bill, the official and both managers agreed to stop the game before the floodlights were needed!

So far this season, Peter has refereed 17 games at National League and EFL levels, showing 68 yellow cards and two reds. His most recent fixture was Chesterfield v Barnet in League Two last Saturday, while his last National League outing was at Truro v Sutton a month ago.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters