Cheshire official Mark Heywood will referee Saturday’s Roses battle at home to Sheffield United, which might cause confusion among fans who like to keep track of this sort of thing.

That’s because Mark Heywood, with an ‘E’, shouldn’t be confused with West Yorkshire’s Mark Haywood, with an ‘A’, who refereed Dale’s home match against Coventry in October.

We last saw Mr Heywood in October 2014 for the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie against Walsall at Spotland, which the visitors won 1-0.

His last league appointment involving Dale was the 3-0 win at Northampton in March 2014 in which the only blot on our copybook was when Matty Lund received a second yellow card for celebrating with the fans after scoring a fine diving header.

In November 2012 Mark was at Spotland for the dreadful 1-0 defeat by Morecambe in an FA Cup first round replay, while in October 2011 he was in charge of Dale’s 2-1 home win over Wycombe.

We have also seen Mr Heywood at pre-season friendlies against Radcliffe Borough and Manchester United in recent years.

So far this season Mark has refereed 17 games, showing 53 yellow cards and three red.

His most recent fixture as a referee was Exeter v Newport last Saturday, while on Tuesday night he was fourth official at Leeds v Fulham.

Mr Heywood has, however, already refereed Sheffield United this season, in their 3-1 home defeat of Doncaster in September.

Photo: Action Images

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