bradley headstone
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Posted: Feb 25th 2010
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I’ve been keeping half an eye out for Rochdale’s scores over the last few seasons, partly because my own teams have been depressing me on a regular basis, but partly because other fans’ depression tends to assuage your own. No club has had a deeper depression than Rochdale.
In 1969 Rochdale were promoted from the quaintly named Division 4 to the giddy heights of Division 3, now universally known as ‘the third tier of English football’ because we’ve no idea what it’s really called any more. They went straight back down, no big deal eh! Happens all the time, well not to Rochdale it doesn’t, for them that was their high and their low. They may have flirted with relegation and promotion since, but most of the time they have just existed.
In a world where living the dream is acceptable and speculating to accumulate is an abiding business principle it takes a special kind of club to bob along on the surface of English Football, bothering no one and causing few ripples.
It’s also a lesson for all the clubs. Currently the suggestion is that more than half the professional outfits in England are in a perilous financial condition. I’m not suggesting that Rochdale haven’t sailed close to dangerous waters, but they strike me as a club with a great sense of itself, what it can do and where it belongs.
There are no 5-year plans, no marquee signings and no sign of a purpose built toilet bowl in which to play in. Spotland, the less than grand home ground, prides itself on it’s warm welcome…seriously. Check out the admirably self-deprecating club homepage on their identikit unreadable official website - the photo of the emergency exit sign is a personal highlight.
Generally between two and five thousand hardy souls turn out to support them, the difference tends to point to the geographical location of the opposition. The Northwest is still a crowded corner of English football and despite the careful husbandry and the recent momentum; it must be hard for locals to truly believe.
But believe they might, for Rochdale look like achieving the impossible dream. Despite a setback at home to Bradford they head the league and have generally laid waste to the other pretenders to their potential crown. Two points clear of the second place team and eight clear of fourth doesn’t guarantee anything with 15 games to go, but manager Keith Hill, an ex-player, has been given the time to build a young side and it’s development and success is a shining example to the rest of football.
They’ve had the odd bump along the way; Hill’s first full season saw the club celebrate its centenary by getting to the play off final at Wembley only to fall at the final hurdle.
Rather than feeling sorry for itself, the club has allowed Hill to patiently build the right foundations for their current position.
I’m sure I’m not the only football watcher who wishes Rochdale well, for all the talk of Pompey and Manchester City, wouldn’t a promotion and a trophy on the Spotland mantelpiece say more about the health of the national game.
Rochdale turn up to my neck of the woods in April, a Tuesday evening, I think I might wander along and re-acquaint myself with the beautiful game.