Referee: DAVID ROCK
Assistant: Stuart Butler and Marcus Carmichael
Fourth Official: Elliott Swallow
Here’s a warning for Stevenage boss Alex Revell – the last two times David Rock has refereed an Imps game, a manager has got the sack! This is the referee who wrongly sent off that Port Vale player last season, which led to Darrell Clarke’s sacking, and the same ref in charge as we hammered Cambridge 3-0 last season, after which Mark Bonner lost his job.
Aside from those games, David Rock is an official we have seen a couple of times at Sincil Bank. He first refereed a Lincoln game in 2014, overseeing our 3-1 defeat away at Woking, with him first visiting Sincil Bank later in the season as we beat Southport 1-0. We saw him for a third time in March 2015, as we drew 1-1 at Wrexham. He didn’t officiate us in Chris Moyses’ full season in charge, but in our historic 2016/17 season, he was the referee as we went down away at Dover, losing 2-0. He was also the referee who sent off Sean Raggett early in our 1-0 November win against Wrexham at Sincil Bank.
Rock joined the Football League referee list in the 2019/20 season but didn’t officiate any Lincoln games. Two seasons ago, the only game he was in charge of was our 2-0 defeat at Plymouth in the FA Cup, in which he booked seven players. He did have two other notable appearances throughout the season. The first was not with Lincoln; he was the referee who was forced to abandon Scunthorpe’s tie with Bradford early in the season because of falling snow. He was also the fourth official the day Szmodics did his swan dive to earn Peterborough an undeserved 3-3 draw in the final game of the 2020/21 season.
He’s only officiated one game this season in our league, Cambridge’s 1-0 defeat against Crawley, during which he handed out eight yellow cards, the highest per game in the division.