Stuart Attwell makes his first refereeing visit to Spotland on New Year’s Day for the Roses battle with Rotherham.

The Warwickshire referee was the fourth official at Dale’s famous play-off semi-final second leg at home to Darlington in May 2008, before taking charge of the final against Stockport at Wembley later that month.

We also saw him for Dale’s 2-0 win at Brentford in March 2008, while last May he refereed our final fixture in League One, which ended in a 2-1 defeat at Leyton Orient.

The young referee has had a torrid time in recent years after a series of high profile, well-documented errors since joining the Select Group of referees.

Those in the know feel he was pushed too quickly and promoted too early, when a longer apprenticeship in the lower leagues might have stood him in greater stead.

This culminated in Mr Attwell leaving the Select Group 12 months ago to revisit that apprenticeship and up to the end of last season there were few problems in the less-rarefied atmosphere of the lower leagues.

This season he has been given games with more riding on them or of a more fiery nature and although these have contained occasional moments of controversy, they have possibly been classed as such because of who the referee was rather than by taking the decisions on their merits.

One such incident came in the Barnsley v Sheffield Wednesday game midway through last month when Mr Atwell ruled The Tykes’ goalkeeper hadn’t been fouled when he went to collect a high cross before Chris O’Grady’s winner, something Keith Hill wasn’t too impressed with.

Still, Stuart must be receiving decent assessments as he refereed the Capital One Cup fourth round tie between Swindon and Aston Villa earlier this term, while on Saturday he is at Peterborough v Norwich in the FA Cup.

Up to Boxing Day, Mr Attwell had refereed 22 games this season, showing 62 yellow cards and two red.

Photo: Action Images

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