WHY IT WAS TIME FOR HILL TO GO...

ROCHDALE without Keith Hill is like the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger or, more aptly, the Stone Roses without Ian Brown.

The 49-year-old, sacked this week after more than a decade in the dugout in two spells, wasn’t just the manager of a football club. Like Eddie Howe at Bournemouth, Paul Tisdale at Exeter or John Coleman at Accrington, he was the mouthpiece and figurehead of an institution forged in his image.

“I suit this club and this club suits me,” he once said. Two promotions suggest he was right.

His departure is sad, but probably for the best. Over the course of two dispiriting seasons, fans have grown increasingly snappy. Hill, never prepared to meekly swallow abuse, increasingly snapped back.

A once mutually appreciative relationship has turned sour.

Even if Hill had won what now appears a doomed battle to stay in League One, old sores would have reopened at the first dip in form or lacklustre performance. Hill doesn’t deserve that.

He deserves to be remembered as the most successful manager in the club’s 112year history, a man who brought not just an historic promotion but a brand of football the envy of rivals and a calibre of player - Adam Le Fondre, Craig Dawson, Scott Hogan - rarely seen at Spotland.

Along with David Flitcroft, his assistant until 2011 when the pair briefly moved to Barnsley, Hill is responsible for the club’s golden years.

His departure, whilst painful, allows supporters to appreciate those achievements without conflict or reservation. For both parties, it’s better than trudging on like a bickering old couple.