BBM still aims for something special

ROCHDALE breathed life into their fight for League One survival with an unlikely 2-1 win at promotion-chasing Lincoln.

Goals from Ollie Rathbone and Stephen Humphrys earned Brian BarryMurphy’s men only their second victory of the year, lifting them off the bottom of the division.

While they remained in the relegation places, the result ended a dreadful sequence of seven defeats in the previous nine games, a run of form which has seen a large portion of Dale supporters lose faith in the management team.

The disconnect between fans and the club’s hierarchy was highlighted last week when, during an online fans’ forum, it was mentioned that BBM’s contract had been extended by 12 months – no details were offered and the club was criticised for not relaying such key information to its support base.

Saturday’s win was the perfect way to ease tensions - and BBM said it was time for actions, not words.

“The supporters are probably sick of me saying we’ve created chances and we should have won but at some stage you want to get a result for the players and for the supporters, to say, ‘we can actually do this,” said BBM.

“We feel as if we have a few players who are very important to us coming back towards full fitness, namely Jake Beesley, and there’s Matty Lund, whose probably different, but as we get them back, there’s confidence within the dressing room that we can achieve something special this season. But again, they are just words, now we have to go and show it.”