Criticism had overlooked our fine work: Hill

ROCHDALE manager Keith Hill said a ‘lot of good people have been offended’ by the wave of criticism towards the club in light of their 1-0 FA Cup fourth round win against Millwall last week.

The national press focused heavily on the condition of the pitch at the Crown Oil Arena. And while Hill accepted the surface did not look good, it was a safe pitch to play on and performed reasonably well on the night – a far cry from the picture that was painted in some quarters.

The criticism largely overshadowed the excitement of a fifth round tie against Spurs to come and Hill said it had been unfair.

“We do some good work at this club which I think gets forgotten,” he told the club’s official website.

“We’ve been lambasted in the media, but I think that people are forgetting what a good football club we are, the values that we have, the way we do business financially, we don’t spend what we haven’t got.

“We are a little bit different to the majority of the footballing world when you see probably two thirds of clubs are actually in debt. We get ridiculed for the state of our pitch and we have invested a lot of money and a lot of man hours in the pitch to make it the perfect playing surface - but it isn’t. We can’t fault any one person, we are trying to make sure we have as good a pitch as we can because of the way we want to play football.

“While we’re getting a bit of stick, we have to accept it, it is our responsibility and the state of the pitch doesn’t look good on the club, especially the look of it, but it played reasonably well against Millwall.

“There were no complaints about the state of the pitch, only the way it looked, and it doesn’t look well. But we are very proud of our honesty and integrity and the way we go about business.

“Some of the criticism we got last week, I do tend to think to myself ‘short memories.’

“Some of the clubs up and down the footballing spectrum are commentating and ridiculing our club, and some of those clubs, historically, haven’t paid for their pitches and have gone into adminstration as a result of not paying bills. We have good morales and we will put on as good a surface as we possibly can for the game.

“A lot of good people have been offended (by the criticism), but we’ll come out fighting, we always do. It’s a real privelige to work for a set of people who are so honest.”

Hill insisted a superior playing surface was the desire of everyone at Rochdale as it suits his style of play.

“We always try to play football. We want to play winning football, but I have chosen a style of football and we have been very successful playing a certain style of football,” he said.

“It can be pleasing on the eye - it’s not so pleasing when you are not winning matches - but we have used our templated style to develop players as well and that’s where we have been really successful. We have educated the players in every aspect of the game and we have provided a platform for players who have played for the club to go and have marvellous careers in the Premier League, the Championship or in League One. We give them the perfect education and that’s my job as a coach.

“A lot of people who have commentated on the way that we play have probably never even seen us play!

“But I do know withing the footballing world or coaching and management, we do get a lot of credit for the way that we play and bring young players through.

“Managers, when they are looking to get players loaned out, want players to come and serve an apprenticeship at our place.”