Trip to Dale a real throwback to 70s
BLUE-EYED BOY’S BLACKBURN VIEW
ALITTLE triva teaser to start off. Who was Rovers manager the last time we played Rochdale in a league match?
Answer a little later in the column.
Our first visit to Spotland for a third-tier fixture for 44 years certainly emphasises the fact that we’re playing lower-division football. All four of our opponents thus far have locked horns with us at Championship level not that long ago but a trip over Owd Betts really is a throwback to the seventies
My first visit to what is now known as – and I shall say zis only once – the Crown Oil Arena was in March 1972 and while I remember little snippets about the game, as well as the unfortunate result, there is one fact about the day that I’ve never forgotten.
My best mate Graham and I were in the first flush of being allowed to travel to away games without our dads and we duly wandered into the Ribblesdale Coaches office on the Boulevard during the week after school and stumped up our 18p or whatever it was to book.
When we arrived and saw the Spotland floodlights on Saturday we turned left and parked down a tree-lined lane. Wandering up the hill towards the ground we counted the coaches already neatly lined up by the kerb.
Ours was coach.
To give some further impression of the huge volume of the away support, Rochdale had played at home to Wrexham, not a million miles distant, the 52nd the previous Saturday before a gate of 2,640. The attendance seven days later when Rovers visited was 6,494.
Lifelong pals Graham and I (I was at the christening of his first grandchild last weekend) will both be there again on Saturday with another big following as Rovers look set to take around 3,000 but one hopes the day pans out differently.
We lost 2-1 that day despite a goal from “Tony Field, superstar” and I vividly recall being able to wander around all four sides of the ground. Just turned 13, we would follow the bigger lads and fellas around and watch as they purposefully staked out their territory by sheer weight of numbers coupled with a suitable air of imminent malevolence, then shuffle onto the fringe of the phalanx.
Later in the year we were back but not before a goal by Malcolm Darling, an old Rovers favourite, had knocked us out of the League Cup to give Rochdale a first ever win at Ewood. Darling had shown early promise for Rovers despite the astonishing decision to offer the young Scottish apprentice digs upstairs in a pub. He lodged at the Fox and Hounds across from the ground!
He was unable to repeat his feat in the league match which brought 1972 to a close, Field again scorer of Rovers’ goal, the matchwinner. The win saw us leap-frog Dale to 13th in the table, a salutary reminder that we were mired in the Third Division. After a good second half of the season we finished third...the lastever time only two went up!
The following season we arrived on the back of a spectacular 5-0 win over Rochdale and a cup replay against Willington, won 6-1 and lay in a promising fifth position.
On a December Friday before the game at Rochdale, Ken Furphy left to join Sheffield United.
The man in charge when we beat Rochdale 2-1 at Spotland the following day? None other than Richard Dinnis, in caretaker charge until the coming of Gordon Lee in January.
Field was again on the mark twice in a 2-1 win but the game is remembered for a howler of a refereeing decision when Rochdale striker Leo Skeete palpably put the ball in our net only for it to burst through a hole in the side netting onto the dog track. The ref gave a goal kick!
Dale were relegated at the end of the season never to be promoted again until their current manager, our old boy Keith Hill, took the reins for the first time. Lee, after a decidedly mixed first few months of 1974, took us up the following season.
Hill’s team haven’t got going yet this season but he will have them up for this one, make no mistake.
I spent a few seasons covering Rochdale for Sunday newspapers and while he is an engaging and often mischievously humorous lad, Hilly has a serious side, an eye for talent and the ability to put a coaching staff together capable of polishing rough material.
Much like we hope Mowbray retains, in fact. His deadline day signings were hardly the sort to get the supporters buzzing – although if Harper is half as good as the PR suggests he might do – and smacked of last-minute necessity to boost the numbers rather than any bold statement of promotion-seeking intent.
Curiously, Mowbray, who has talked down the need for Rovers to retain Category A Academy status, seems reluctant to utilise what increasingly looks to be an outstanding crop of youngsters in the Under-21’s who are deservedly harvesting rich plaudits as they continue a coruscating unbeaten streak this season.
I’m sure those who have the interests of, say, Willem Tomlinson, Jack Doyle and Joe Rankin-Costello at heart must raise a quizzical eye upwards when we recruit young players in similar positions with not that much more experience.
The Lenihan injury news is a grave concern and one hopes Mulgrew’s knock with Scotland was no more than that. We can ill afford to lose the presence and ability he provides.
If we can gather a minimum of four points from tomorrow’s game and Tuesday’s at Scunthorpe, we will be not far off the mix. Any less and catching up will take some doing.