Rochdale’s rampant young guns put Pearce on the spot
A FIRST-HALF penalty from one of Rochdale’s more senior players, Peter Vincenti, piled the pressure on Nottingham Forest manager Stuart Pearce as the home team notched a third-round upset for the second successive season.
But this victory at Spotland is likely to be remembered as a coming-of-age match for a young side de awash with home-grown talent. Six of the players involved came through the League One club’s youth system, most of them teenagers and playing in the youth edition of this tournament not long ago.
‘It’s almost a lower league Class of 92,’ said Rochdale e assistant manager Chris Beechh in a reference to Manchester r United’s fabled group that t included Ryan Giggs, David d Beckham, Paul Scholes and the e Neville brothers. ‘This is a great at day for the football club,’ he e added.
Rochdale chairman Chris Dun- nphy hailed the win as ‘fantastic’. c’. He added: ‘It’s what we’re trying ng to do here, bring players throughh … because of illness and injuries we were down to the bare bones, but they all delivered.’
With Forest’s form falling off a cliff over the past few months, they have dropped to 11th place in the Championship and are now nine points off the play-offs. But Pearce said: ‘I’m not a panicker. We’ve been beaten today in a game where we had countless opportunities. We need to learn from that. And we need to be judged on where we are at the end of the season.’
While the result is not perhaps the most massive shock imaginable, given Forest’s terrible form of late, BeechB h stressed dh there remainsi ‘a massive gap in finance and quality’ between the clubs, and thus rightly claimed that glory is due. Manager Keith Hill was too busy celebrating with his young squad to speak.
A year ago Rochdale’s third-round victims were the former champions of England, Leeds. This time is was the former champions of Europe.
The glory days of both seem long ago and Forest are enduring a woeful spell, with no win their last seven games and just two in 18 matches.
‘We gifted the opposition a soft goal,’ added Pearce when he spoke of the decisive penalty, awarded when referee Gary Sutton ruled that Forest’s Michail Antonio had knocked over Joe Rafferty. ‘We dominated possession and had chances but our players did not take any clear cut opportunity. But credit to Rochdale.’
This was Rochdale’s fifth FA Cup match of 2014-15, having needed replays to beat Northampton and Aldershot. They are also in the thick of a promotion race in the third tier, lying just two points off the play-off places.
This run will increase their confidence and the coffers. They will pocket £67,000 in prize cash and could bank a further six figures with a major opponent and/or a TV game in the fourth round. They really should have earned more from the gate but Forest sold only 2,500 of their 3,500 ticket allocation.
Forest had the first decent chance in the ninth minute when Chris Burke was bought down to earn a free-kick. David Vaughan curled the ball goalwards and it needed a smart punch from Josh Lillis to clear.
But Rochdale were ahead three minutes later when 28-year-old Vincenti converted the match-winning penalty. And had he shown more composure, Rochdale might have been two ahead, but he missed a sitter laid on by 19-year-old Callum Camps, one of Rochdale’s home- grown players. Forest ended the first half with two errors. One sloppy back-pass was pounced on by Jamie Allen who ran past Dorus de Vries and was only stopped by a last-gasp block from Danny Fox.
Then a Vaughan back-pass was charged down by Matt Done, De Vries’s attempted clearance clattered into the oncoming player and the ball ballooned over the bar, just. Done then set up Allen, but his header was saved.
Forest were much better in the second half and pressed Rochdale. By the end the home team were hanging on. But hang on they did.
Sometimes you do win with kids.