Rory Prendergast’s favourite referee, Mark Haywood, will referee the game at Peterborough on Friday.

The former Dale winger knows Mr Haywood from his days in the Wakefield area and named him as his favourite official in an interview in The Voice of Spotland three years ago.

We last saw Mark at Macclesfield in February when Chris O’Grady’s fortunate ricochet clinched a 1-0 win.

Prior to that, he refereed the 6-1 home win over Chester in October 2008, in which Chris Dagnall netted a hat-trick.

Mr Haywood’s first Dale match came in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy at Wrexham in October 2006 when we won after a penalty shoot-out.

He then appeared at Spotland FOUR times in 2007, starting with the 2-0 Easter Monday loss at home to Barnet.

He returned for the Rose Bowl/Centenary Challenge game with Oldham in the following July and also took charge of the Carling Cup tie against Stoke and the League Two fixture with Wrexham later in the year.

This season Mark has refereed 16 games, showing 27 yellow cards and one red.

His most recent outing was at Turf Moor for the televised fixture between Burnley and Derby, one of six Championship fixtures he has officiated at this term.

Refworld Profile: http://refworld.com/referee/140/1

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