The man in the middle for Rotherham United’s home game with Bristol Rovers on Saturday is Andy Haines from Tyne and Wear who started refereeing in London in 1995. After two seasons as a Panel referee Andy was promoted to the National List of Referees in 2007.
This will be Andy’s second game in charge of a Millers match this season, the first being our one-all draw at the New York Stadium against Plymouth Argyle. The game was goalless going into the half-time break but five minutes into the second half the Millers went down to ten men after skipper Richard Wood received a second yellow card. With eight minutes of normal time remaining Argyle went ahead with a goal from former Millers striker Ryan Taylor. But deep into stoppage time Rotherham got a deserved point when Semi Ajayi smashed home after a goalmouth scramble. Richie Towell also saw yellow that day for the hosts with Plymouth having Taylor and Graham Carey booked.
Before this season Andy’s last time in the middle of a Rotherham game was in October 2013 in our League One clash at home to Swindon Town. The visitors won the game four-nil with goals from Alex Pritchard, Massimo Luongo, Nicky Ajose and Danny N’Guessan. Mark Bradley, Lee Frecklington, Rob Milsom and Ben Pringle saw yellow for the Millers alongside three Town players.
The time before that saw Andy at the New York Stadium in December 2012 when Gillingham were in town. Former Miller Deon Burton put Gillingham in front on eleven minutes and doubled the lead twelve minutes into the second half. On sixty-nine minutes Jason Taylor unleashed an unstoppable shot from twenty-five to half the deficit and the Millers had a shout for a penalty turned down some minutes later. When Taylor and Romain Vincelot collided it was ten minutes later when the Frenchman was stretchered off the pitch and in time added on with the Millers fans urging their team on Lewis Montrose made a crucial block to clear a shot from Lee Frecklington to stop an equaliser.
Andy has been in charge of a number of Millers games including the first ever one at Don Valley when the Millers beat Lincoln City with a Reuben Reid goal a minute before half-time.
The 2011/12 season saw him at Don Valley twice – firstly for our one-nil loss to Burton and then when Crawley were the visitors when Brett Williams opened the scoring for the hosts on the twentieth minute only for Crawley to score twice in the second half to take all the points.
September 2010 saw him in the middle for our one-nil ‘home’ win against Chesterfield with the goal coming from Adam Le Fondre and the season before Andy was in the middle again at Don Valley when Michael Flynn and James Hanson gave Bradford City a two goal lead with Adam Le Fondre halving the deficit on the stroke of full-time from the penalty spot.
This season Andy has been in the middle for thirty games showing ninety yellow cards and six red cards.
Running the line on Saturday we have Alf Greenwood from North Yorkshire and Declan Ford who hails from Lincolnshire. The Fourth Official will be Alix Pashley from Derbyshire.
