Shakers Go Fishing for Three Points

Ok so we played the ‘Shrimpers’ on Saturday. Is it me or does no one else like the prospect of losing to a team sharing its name with a pink fish? Its a parallel to being beaten up by a flamingo, losing to Morecambe really isn’t easy to swallow.

Thankfully we didn’t lose, we won , again! Three wins in three for the Shakers sees them take 3rd position in the league (on goal difference) and keep their 100% record. 

We weren’t actually very good, going a goal behind (deservedly) seemed to bring some life into our previously, skillfuly raucous ranks but still, the gear stick seemed jammed in third. I fairness Paul Scott leveled the scores less than 15 minutes after Morecambe scored and the Shakers took the lead, through a brilliant run from Elliot Bennett which produced a cross dangerous enough to cause Morcambe defender Artell to panick and fire the ball past his own ‘keeper, before the first half was finished.

Going in at HT at 2-1 seemed fair to the Shaker’s faithful although some questions were raised about the general performance, striker Andy Bishop coming in for some fairly harsh criticism in some quarters.

The second passed with little incident on the pitch. Unfortunately the ‘men in black’ decided they hadn’t had enough of a say in the game and proceeded to go mad. Premiership referee Lee Probert was as consistant as crazy paving while his assistants (one in particular) appeared to give offside decisions on a totally random basis.

Ah well, job done. Alan Knill was reassuring in his post-match interview as he acknowledge our less-than-perfect performance. It’s Dale next and I suspect my learned friend is a little more nervous than I am.

Dale Sting The Bees

The first home league game of the season is a special occasion for every team in the league.  It is, in fact, so special that it warranted the first bad (nickname-related) pun of the season.  You love it really, don’t you?  Anyway, time to get down to the serious business of the match.

After Dale drew against Grimsby and lost against Oldham in the cup, a victory was imperative.  To add to this was the fact that winning the first home game of the season can help set the tone for a while, leading to some good form.  Defeat was out of the question.  Unfortunately, defeat was actually a possibility.  Barnet have been a bogey team to Dale in recent years, even ending any play-off hopes a couple of seasons ago with a 3-1 away win at Spotland.  Last season was a different story, with a Barnet side that seemed content to just pass to Jason Puncheon and hope, getting thoroughly thrashed by Dale.  With Puncheon now at Plymouth, would the Bees fare any better this term?  Well, yes they would.  They lost by less.

Rochdale, surprisingly, named an unchanged side from the team that went the distance against Oldham, with:  Russell, Ramsden, Stanton, McArdle, Kennedy, Higginbotham, Keltie, Jones, Rundle, Dagnall and Shaw.  The substitutes consisted of:  Spencer, Wiseman, Toner, Thorpe and Le Fondre.  I was very surprised that no changes were made as, at this stage of the season, fitness is still not perfect and fatigue may set in.  Were my fears misplaced?  Initially, it didn’t look like it.  In only the 3rd minute, Adam Birchall scored to give Barnet the lead.  This goal was disappointing for a myriad of reasons.  Firstly, Birchall had enough space to bring the ball down and set himself (which, incidently, he didn’t actually need).  Secondly, his volley seemed to go in from an improbable angle while also possessing very little pace.  I could go on and on…..  Obviously, the Rochdale fans were rather frustrated by this, especially as Barnet are a poor team in all honesty.  The next 35 minutes only added to the frustration as Rochdale passed the ball around in a manner that posed very little threat to the Barnet defence and also led to error after error that cost possession on countless occasions.  It did seem like one of “those” days was going to grace Spotland yet again.  Did the referee do anything to dispel these feeling?  Did he fu…..  Rochdale were the lucky recipients of the man-in-black who had never officiated in a league game before.  It showed as he was happy to blow for everything outside the box and absolutely nothing around the area.  Rochdale could have had three or four penalties for handling in the box on another day.  Seriously, it was getting a bit ridiculous.

Despite all this, Rochdale got the goal that their play didn’t deserve on 39 minutes.  A mistake on the right-hand side of the Barnet defence let in Adam Rundle, who played an unintentionalone-two with Chris Dagnall, before firing home with his weaker right foot (which I still maintain that he cannot use).  It’s hard to say just how much this goal meant to Rochdale.  Ever since the ball smashed into the bottom left hand corner, it brought a new confidence in Rochdale that made the team that looked like they wouldn’t score in the next decade, look very ruthless indeed.  This was backed up on the stroke of half time, when Gary Jones, continuing his great form from last season, sent through Dagnall who smashed a terrific shot past a flapping Beckwith and in off the inside of the post.  Anybody who knows anything about football will know that scoring just before half time totally changes a manager’s team talk and has a demoralising effect on the team.  Consequently, Dale’s comeback pretty much assured victory, though I expected Barnet to fightback after half time and really challenge for some points…………..

…………..which they didn’t do.  All in all, it was a pretty comfortable victory for Dale, as they passed the ball around with confidence, leaving Barnet to chase the ball for most of the half.  The pinnacle of the half came when Jon Shaw, making his home league debut, volleyed home in the 70th minute after a Sam Russell kick totally fooled the Barnet defence.  OK, so it was very much route-one, but it got the job done and opened Shaw’s account for Dale.  From then on Rochdale saw out the game with effortless ease and chalked up their first win of the campaign.

As for the team, it was a team performance where nobody really excelled above the other players.  All the players played their part, with only Kallum Higginbotham turning out an unimpressive display.  Kallum is unfortunately starting to pay the price for his tender age and looks out of his depth.  He seems unwilling to use his pace to directly attack fullbacks and is being muscled out of confrontations every time .  Consequently, it may be time that someone else gets a shot in the first team.  My recommendation would be newboy, Ciaran Toner-who replaced Higgy in this game.  He possesses the height and power that Higgy lacks despite having significantly less pace, but his experience may make up for this.  He looks like a great signing.  An even better signing is Clark Keltie, who has looked fantastic in central midfield so far.  Playing deep, playmaker role, Keltie has showed some impressive vision with the passing skills to match, even reminiscent of Jon Doolan (in his younger and better days).  Jon Shaw is the final signing (I’ve not had enough chance to look at Scott Wiseman yet) to make his league debut against Barnet.  After a move from Halifax and the Conference, Shaw needed to adapt to the pace of League Two, but he looked more than capable of handling it, won plenty of headers and took his goal extremely well.  He could be another Glenn Murray!  (Note-that means very good, for any non-Dale fans out there)

So next up is Bradford away, where I will be relieving the Dale Pea of his duties and making the short trip to (Spits!) Yorkshire.  Bye!

Forget Claret and Blues, Knill In-spires

17/08/2008

Right, anyone who reads this may have noticed that I have commented on the Tuesday night League Cup loss to Burnley. This isn’t because it was dyer, we played well by all accounts, I just wasn’t there. Work beckoned and, having already taken three weeks off for my jaunt to Italy, taking another holiday may have seemed to be taking the ’shoot and miss’.

So, moving on, I felt I had to make amends. This came in the shape of a train, this train was heading for Chesterfield (via Sheffield and what appeared to be most of rural England). I am quite a fan of public transport, that is except for the ‘public’ bit. Surely there are people who set out in life to appear stupid? It can’t be natural, evolution selection should take care of that problem shouldn’t it? Anyway leaving aside the lesser levels of Human existence, the journey was fairly straight forward. I wouldn’t say the Shakers contingent ‘took over’ the train but we made Carrage 4 our very own.

Now something I don’t do very often is miss the kick-off of games. In fairness I didn’t miss this one really, I was passing through the turnstile as the whistle blew, but the first 30 seconds of action was lost on me as a result of the hospitality shown to us by The Rutland public house. This also meant I missed being told that 20 goal a season striker Andy Bishop was out with a strain, which lead to a game of ’spot the Bishop’ (a game I feel could be branched out into many areas of life) for the opening few minutes.

As it happened this wasn’t the game to miss more than 30 seconds of, a point shown by us taking the lead after just three minutes when Ben ‘6ft7′ Futcher (he really is that big!) hooked the ball over his head and over opposing goalkeeper Tommy Lee (Lee is also 6ft7…if he stands on a 5ft box). 

One centre-half scoring is funny enough but when the other (the mildly wonderful Efe Sodje in this case) does it, it’s fantastic. Not only did Sodje score, he did it in style, breaking into the box, changing pace and slotting the ball past the forlorn Lee.

Lee did then pull off a top quality save from a Paul Scott header but it made little difference to the outcome. Bury completed the first half drubbing with their third goal through new signing Andy Morrell. A poacher’s goal from an old head.

So, 3-0 up at half-time, it’s not raining, I’m feeling good….oh hang on what’s this. Bishop has been sold to Norwich? £350,000? Err no actually. Although this rumour did gather some pace on the terrace which played our home for the game, it was rubbish. The more interesting questions were what would Knill say to the players? Would Chesterfield come out on the attack? Was it safe to have a pie? (the enfatic answer to the last question having seen other people’s ground bought delicacies was NO!)

Chesterfield did come out on the attack and made the second half a bit uncomfortable for the 400 or so hardy Shakers. A move by Knill to a 4-5-1 shape eased the pressure and the Shakers brought it home. Then it was my time to take the country roads too, via another train and a metrolink that didn’t go to where it was meant to, I was back. My blue blood colder but still pumping hard.

Rochdale vs Oldham Athletic

Rochdale are out of the Carling Cup.  After an eventful, yet scoreless ninety minutes, Rochdale lost the penalty shootout 4-1.  It was a disappointing result from an action-packed game that ended up putting the Carling Cup on the backburner for yet another season.

The game was a fitting draw as Ernie Cooksey, who tragically died in the summer at the age of 28, had turned out for both clubs in his career.  This made the game into a tribute for him which both sides and sets of supporters embraced.  The players wore special shirts during the warm-up that featured Cooksey’s name and number (4) on the back, which were then distributed to the crowd.  The tributes continued throughout the evening, though, personally, the most poignant moments were during the minute’s applause to celebrate his life. The decoration of this minute with many Ernie-related chants from both sets of supporters was far and away the most moving experience I have ever had the pleasure of being present at a football ground for.  R.I.P Ernie Cooksey.

So on with the match and it didn’t start well for Dale.  They were ‘under the cosh’ to say the least.  Oldham, looking to cement their superiority, regularly threatened and pressurised the Rochdale goal in the opening minutes without creating too many gilt-edged opportunities.  But after 20 minutes they finally made an impression against the impressive Dale defence.  Smalley, Oldham’s right-winger, had terrorised the Rochdale defence with a display of direct dribbling at blinding pace and when he cut inside Tom Kennedy, Dale looked in trouble.  Unfortunately, that is exactly what they got as Rory Mcardle caught him late, leaving the referee with no option but to point at the spot.  So up stepped Lee Hughes.  For those of you who don’t know, Lee Hughes used to be a big deal in English football, a much sought after striker when he was scoring for fun at West Bromwich Albion.  But after a hit-and-run incident that left another man dead, Lee Hughes spent some time ‘doing porridge’.  Upon his release, he was signed by Oldham and became destined to be a hate figure of fans from across the land.  Was it any different at Dale?  Nope.  Oh and he further endeared himself to our fans by playing for local rivals.  So was there delight when he struck his penalty at Sam Russell?  You have no idea.  A wave of Rochdale fans shot across the stand to taunt the ‘boisterous’ section of the Oldham fans (to put it democratically), only to be slowly trudging back seconds later with the ‘rozzers’ in close proximity.

The penalty miss was a turning point in the first half as it woke up some of the Rochdale players who had been on cruise control.  The axis of power had shifted and Rochdale had a 5-10 minute spell of pummelling Mark Crossley’s goal which ultimately ended fruitlessly despite Sean Gregan’s horror show at the back for Oldham.  Following this spell, the match soon calmed down and settled into a less frantic rhythm.  Until on the stroke of half-time when Craig Davies inexplicably headbutted Nathan Stanton to see red and reduce Oldham to ten men.  There are many words to describe this moment of madness but, taking into account the context of the evening, I am going to have to settle on DISGRACE.  It showed a total lack of respect and was the polar opposite of what Ernie Cooksey always stood for in his career.  I hope the player learns from this mistake, but it left me with a sour taste in my mouth.  Disgusting.

From then on the evening formed a familiar pattern, Rochdale dominating but failing to breakdown the Crossley-inspired Oldham defence that rolled back the years.  As the rain continued to fall ever heavier, penalties looked inevitable and eventually they arrived.  To cut a long story short (to relieve me of the pain of going through it in detail), Lee Hughes capped of a miserable display with the winning penalty.  Having previously been denied by Sam Russell, Hughes made no mistake in the shootout.  Was it a fitting end?  Considering that Hughes had: missed a hatful of simple chances, raced 40 yards to pick up an injured player to make a point, spent 2 minutes attempting to provoke Gary Jones and being caught offside so many times that the linesman probably wore his shoulder blade away, I don’t think justice was done.  But then again, it’s been a long time since Hughes and justice were pen pals, hasn’t it?

Why I love a Bishop

We won! We flipping won! Andy ‘Lazy’ Bishop used his left foot to start the Shakers campaign in the best way possible. Not only did we win, but we played well. Its a long time since I’ve seen all Eleven starting players in a Bury side have a good game but it happened.

Unlike my green veg relying friend, I was at this game and glad of it I am too! Now, to kill two birds with one stone, I will both list the starting eleven and give a little overview of how they did (all complaetely biased of course)

W. Brown – In fairness our ’superman’ GK didn’t have much to do. Got down to onw good strike and collected a few crosses, still he did what needed doing.

D Buchannan – The shortest left-back in history? Who cares! Very good performance from the N.Irish U21, amazing what happens when you play someone in the correct position.

E. Sodje – He was Sodje, dived into tackles, ran about, headed, kicked, shinned and was generally a brick wall. A bit shakey in the first 10 minites but once in control there was never an issue.

B. Futcher – ‘The Freak’ showed why being 6ft7 is usefel. He won EVERYTHING in the air and never let the opposition strikers have enough space to do much. Impressive from the one time ‘fans most hated’.

P. Scott – Once again proved he simply doesn’t feel pain. If he couldn’t tackle with his feet, he tackled with his head. Earning himself two stitches in the process

E. Bennett – Back (on loan) from Wolves, Bennett once again impressed. My friend will remember how he destroyed Rochdale’s defence last season, culminating in him being rashly hacked down by a Dale centre-half, rightly resoting in an immediate red card. Although quiet on Saturday, Bennett did show glimpses of his undeniable talent and ability.

S. Dawson – My MOM gave a hardworking, dogged display and showed what ‘hardmen’ midfielders are all about. Nothing glamorous, just very solid, very committed play. Never afraid to put in a challenge and always a pain for opposition players.

B. Barry-Murphy – ‘BBM’ (we can’t be bothered with the full name!) is a ball playing central midfielder. In L2 this may sound wrong (like ‘chips and mayo’) but when used properly, the Ulsterman is deadly. He didn’t exactly set the world alight on Saturday but the few times he did get the ball out to the wingers, you realised why he’s such a key part of any success this team has. 

M. Jones – I admit I haven’t seen much of our new signing, but I saw enough in the first half on saturday to keep my faith in Alan Knill for a while yet. Put simplay, Jones started as though he’d had a rocket lodged in his backside. Quick moving with good feet, Jones was giving the opposing full backs headaches from the start. Quietened towards the end but still did enough to impress.

A Bishop – Did NOTHING all game, scored. Suits me fine

G Hurst – Did everything, ran everywhere and generally caused problems. What Hurst loses is pace/mobility he more than makes up for with intelligence. Was unlucky to hit the post when through on goal but showed exactly why we fans adore him.

Subs used – Racchi, Baker and Cresswell – none of them had enough time on the pitch to impose themselves.

In other news – We’ve signed Andy Morrell. The striker who scored 34 goals in a season at L2 level with Wrexham just a few years ago and 17 for Blackpool in L1 the season before last…has joined Bury on a 2 year contract! This could go one of two ways…either he’ll be amazing or horrific. The latter will be unpleasent I admit, but if the outcome is the former……..In Knilly We Trust.

The End Of All Suffering

Football has returned!!  After the barren spell that is the summer break, the new football season is underway.  2007/08 was a great season for the Dale, will 2008/09 be as prosperous or will it even surpass Dale’s flirt with the P word (Pr*m*tion)?  Well, I’ll tell you in 9 or 10 months.  But for now I can tell you that their season is underway.  Forget the Premiership.  Forget Euro 2008 (eventhough it was a cracking tournament).  Even forget the Champions League.  No, the real action is in Coca-Cola League Two!

So Dale’s treacherous journey started at Blundell Park- home of ‘the Mariners’, Grimsby Town.  Now here is a confession, I didn’t actually go to this match.  Yes, this may seem like I’m not a proper fan, glory supporter…bla…bla…yadda…whatever….etc, but as I explained in my introductory post, it is very hard for me to get to games due to my family not being littered with Dale aficionados.  But have no fear!  I wouldn’t leave a 23 game gap in my correspondence.  So ‘the Dale Pea’ will provide coverage of these games.  Ok, so Liam and the Dale Pea is hardly Batman and Robin, but if it’ll cover almost every game, it’ll do.  So here’s what the Dale Pea had to say about the 0-0 draw that opened the season:

Only four months ago Dale were playing at the best footballing arena in the world, with the possibility of finally making a move out of Division 4/Division 3/League 2. As it is though, we took our annual trip to Grimsby, the weather reflecting that of Wembley, and thats where the similarities end.
A small handful compared to that of our turnout at Wembley, as expected, but a nevertheless boisterous atmosphere coming up with the 700 or so Dale fans, all of which were hopeful and expectant of a good start against Alan Buckley’s boys. The ‘feel good’ factor surrounding Dale since Keith Hill took over all that time ago, backed up by the pre-season expectations, something dissimilar to our East coast opponents. Whilst loyal and unwilling to part with Buckley, the fans at Blundell Park talked pre-match of their hopes of avoiding an early defeat. And that they did, much to the delight of Alan Buckley, who insisted that it was a ‘great team performance’ from the Mariners, something I didn’t see myself.
Should we read too much into the fact that managers are delighted to take a draw off us, despite us being the away team? Maybe a slightly backhanded way of viewing our prospects, but nevertheless encouraging that we can claim ourselves the favourites in the majority of the season’s games.
The game itself served up very little in terms of goal scoring opportunities, with the best falling to the feet of the now injury free Chris Dagnall, who saw his six yard effort brilliantly tipped away by Barnes in the Grimsby net. In the dying moments, Rundle wriggled his way through a crowd of players, before taking a right foot shot from an impossible angle, instead of laying it off to the waiting Dagnall.
Whilst we are yet to have seen Shaw or Toner in competitive action, we can take many positives from the season’s first outing and move on to Tuesday’s derby match against Oldham with the confidence still in the team from the dizzy heights reached last season.

That was the Dale Pea, who shall return on the 23rd August for the Bradford game (hopefully).  Until then he decided to impart some wisdom regarding the lighter side of life in the league.  The first story is your bog standard nutters getting thrown out, well if you forget the fact that it was the Dale youth team!  Arriving in a self-rented coach obviously didn’t help them much as they were escorted out of the ground.  The second story is much more interesting.  A member of the crowd, who was inebriated to say the least, decided it would be funny to throw the ball at the goalkeeper when it came into the stand.  Whether it was karma or a shocking lack of balance, the bloke appeared to be unable to harness the power he possessed and fell over after he had thrown the ball.  Through an advertising hoarding.  On to the pitch.  If this was on tape, the Dale Pea would be £250 richer (you just have to love ’You’ve Been Framed’) by now.  A missed opportunity.

So that concludes the Grimsby coverage.  The next match is on Tuesday August 12th when Dale will take on local rivals Oldham Athletic in the Carling Cup (a match that I will be covering).  This match is likely to be especially poignant for both sets of fans due to the untimely death of Ernie Cooksey.  Ernie died recently at the tragically young age of 28 from a malignant melanoma and turned out for both clubs.  Here’s hoping that Tuesday is a fitting tribute to him.

One man who didn’t play at Grimsby and won’t play any part this season is Ben Muirhead (see Rochdale AFC: The Squad, The Kit, The Ground and The Games for a description).  After a troubled season, Muirhead decided to have is contract cancelled just days before the new season.  He said that his aim was to “…try and get back to playing in the Championship like I was at Bradford.”  This bothered me for a few reasons.  The first is that, since Dale have signed him after his loan spell, he has been unimpressive to say the least.  He has also shown a lack of loyalty to a team that gave him a fresh start, a winning penalty in a play-off semi-final and an appearance at Wembley Staium.  The most perplexing thing of all is that he has become unemployed, in order to get a promotion.  Surely the best way to get to a better club is to play your heart out for the club you are at?  But nevermind, at the end of the day, I am glad he is off the wage bill in a position that Dale have a few options in.

Finally, I would like to just have a sly dig at the News of the World and Luton Town.  Firstly, the News of the World tipped Rochdale to be fighting relegation.  The rest of the world are tipping Rochdale for pr*m*ti*n.  It seems that the paper is trying it’s best to show that it cares about League Two when they clearly don’t have a clue.  It’s very sad really.  At least the Dale can have fun proving them wrong.  Secondly, a Luton director, who is too unimportant to remember (Stephen Brown? Stephen Browne? Stephene Brown? Something like that), decided to say something along the lines of: “Why are successful teams punished financially?  Look at Rochdale, they have won nothing and their finances are fine.”  Not only was this hideously disrespectful, it also reeked of hypocrisy as currently Luton are sitting at the bottom of the Football League on -30 points.  Sure this was brought about by many financial irregularities, but who gave this no-mark the right to criticise one of the most financially-sound sides in the Football League.  Ok, so Rochdale may lack some ambition at times, but who is most likely to be here in 50 years?

I’m Back :)

Two weeks in Italy has brought a new shade to my outlook. Im fresh, happy and relaxed. Well sort of, three hours sleep in the last two days has sort of darkened the Royal Blue tint.

Anyway, my learned friend seems to have done a wonderful review on the entire Rochdale squad. I will follow suit, but not today! A few points though; our new away kit is all red (well there’s some white tubing but its a red kit!), we’ve signed three wingers (Michael Jones, Danny Racchi and (back on loan) Wolves wonderkid Elliott Bennett. Well respected manager Peter Jackson has tipped us for success, as have the editorial team of 442 magazine and new permanent signing Efetobre Sodje (the one with the bandana) is in  the top five most picked L2 players in just about every ‘Fantasy Football’ competition going.

The Shakers start with Brentford at home on Saturday (August 6th) and then Burnley on the 9th. Here goes nothing…