The second and final story on the fan's forum is now online, read on for more details, but only as long as you can put up with the poor grammar.

Question and Answer session: 

Q1: When will the next Shareholders meeting be? 

A1: “The club are waiting for the Auditors to get back to them, when they get back to us, which are expected to be in any time now, the club will then announce the date.” 

“It will be ‘soon’ though,” answered Chris Dunphy and Paul Hazlehurst. 

Q2: There seems to be different contracted stewards recently, will we be seeing them throughout the season? 

A2: “The club has to contract out for stewards as we don’t have enough, but we would like to assure you that we’re getting the best possible price in the market,” answered Colin Garlick. 

Q3: Will Rochdale AFC be signing another centre midfielder to prevent us being in same situation as we were at Wembley? 

A3: “No new centre midfield will be signed at this moment in time. And we were unlucky last season with the Basham situation and the fact that Lewis Montrose was set to make his debut against Shrewsbury Town until he picked up an injury two days before the game.” 

“And we now have three quality midfielders with Kyle Lambert also providing adequate cover, we don’t want to hinder his development, so unless he doesn’t develop like we hope, then we’re fine as we are. If not, then there are players available for loan that we know about,” answered Keith Hill.  

Q4: Do Brighton still owe us money for Glenn Murray? 

A4: “Yes, Brighton paid 50% of the fee originally with a further 2 instalments to follow. One of which we are due any time now, with the second due in January.”  

“If Brighton are successful with Murray there are also other clauses that can be triggered,” answered Colin Garlick 

Q5: Can the club go through the finer details of what deal we actually received for Matty Hughes? 

A5: “The transfer of Hughes to Celtic didn’t work out how we hoped it would, we won’t get the true value of the player,” answered Keith Hill. 

“The club got the best deal under the circumstances, but to put it in perspective, when at Celtic Park, a member of staff there told me that Celtic “don’t use scouts anymore, they just use the agents instead,” answered Colin Garlick 

Q6: Will Celtic actually honour their promise to play a friendly game against us? 

A6: “We have Celtic’s promise to play us in writing and they wanted to play us this pre-season. However, Hill had already made his plans and they suggested in January instead.” 

“But instead of January, we have agreed to play them during next pre-season instead.” 

“Also, as part of the deal, we are currently looking at two of their players at the moment as they have 40 or so players all looking to break into the first team up there,” answered Colin Garlick. 

Q7: Who’s in charge of picking the new kits and will the yellow kit be ditched this season? 

A7: “Everyone decided on the best design for the new away shirt.”  

“And the yellow one will be used this season and is being used in the first game at Blundell Park,” answered Jack Northover and Stuart Ashworth. 

Q8: How much did we actually receive for David Perkins? 

A8: “Not enough!” – Keith Hill 

“There was no silly clause in the contract we offered to David Perkins last season. If we didn’t agree to his reasonable requests then he could have left us this summer for nothing.” 

“To say we only paid £6,000 to Morecambe for him, we didn’t do too badly out of the deal to say we could have lost him for nothing,” answered Colin Garlick. 

Q9: Can whoever’s in control of the sound systems at Spotland turn the volume down please? 

A9: “Yes, it’s more complicated than that due to the aging sound system at Spotland, but we’ll try and resolve that problem for you,” answered Dave Sweetmore. 

Q10: Do the board read and react to what is put on the RochdaleAFC.com message board? 

A10: “Yes and yes,” answered Andrew Kelly. “We do read it but it’s better to write to us formerly instead of hiding under false names on the message board,” answered Graham Rawlinson. 

Q11: It’s been reported that there was trouble between Bolton and Rochdale supporters during the weekend. Are the club acting on this to prevent this happening in the future? 

A11: “The FA are introducing new schemes which we are backing such as reducing anti-social behaviour such as foul language at football grounds. We want to make Spotland as family friendly as possible.” 

“As for the trouble between both sets of fans, the police gave had intelligence on the history between Bolton’s and Rochdale’s minority of trouble causing supporters, but it’s something we can do without.” 

“If we have a quiet season in regards to no Football Related Violence, then our police costs for next season will be significantly reduced,” answered Colin Garlick. 

Q12: Question 12 is more of request for possible new Gold Bond agents to get in touch with Lottery agents as there’s currently vacancies that need filling.  

Becoming a Gold Bond agent has many rewards including a huge discount on your season ticket and it’s a decent laugh too. So if you’re interested, get in touch with Peter Woodhouse at the club. 

Q13: You mentioned cutting down on foul language this season… Will supporters be expected not to swear if a certain Mr Beeby referees a Rochdale game again this season? 

A13: “We have to be careful and all we really expect is honesty, we didn’t get that from Beeby. Although, he’d be docked points if he admitted his mistakes,” answered David Flitcroft. 

“There is a performance league for referees where the bottom 2 referees in the league get relegated to the Conference every season.” 

“I spoke to Beeby the day after and he wouldn’t admit to any mistakes during the whole match, never mind the sending off,” answered Keith Hill. 

Q14: Shouldn’t the appeals panel have rescinded the red card with the obvious video evidence? 

A14: “If the panel rescind too many red cards then FIFA can take away the panel. Only around 15-20% of appeals were rescinded last season,” answered Keith Hill. 

“Despite it unique and it would be wrong to see it taken away, I have no faith whatsoever in the appeal panel thanks to this season’s experiences with it.” 

“Apparently we have to prove there is a serious error in the referee’s judgement. Which there were, as Beeby’s report stated that Perkins made a two-footed tackle which connected with the Darlington player’s shin.”  

“And the DVD showed that was not the case at all. However, that wasn’t enough for the panel, even when the PFA voiced their disgust on behalf of David stating it was an ‘absolute disgrace’ of a decision,” answered Colin Garlick. 

Q15: Where did the figure of £400,000 profit from Wembley come from seeing as it isn’t the case then? 

A15 “I might have said it at the time, but I had no idea all we’d get would be £13,000 and a few beers,” answered Chris Dunphy. 

Q16: When will the new away kits be in stock at the club shop? 

A16: “We were told 15^th of July by Nike and are still waiting for them now,” answered Stuart Ashworth. 

Q17: Can you fill us in on how close we were to signing Glenn Murray, Grant Holt and Nicky Adams? 

A17: “We made no contact with Brighton in regards to bringing Murray back to Spotland.” 

“We made an enquiry for Holt, but when Shrewsbury expressed their interest, Forest kept upping the price, which Shrewsbury were happy to keep paying, whereas we couldn’t afford it.” 

“And in regards to Adams, we were extremely close to signing him, if it weren’t for Leicester City he’d have been wearing black and blue at Spotland this season, that’s for sure,” answered Keith Hill. 

Q18: Do you think Paddy McCourt will be able to make it with Celtic? 

A18: “I’m not too sure if he can make it at Celtic, it’s up to Paddy if he does or not,” answered Keith Hill. 

David Flitcroft also echoed what Hill said but also stated that “everyone at the club hopes that Paddy makes it and becomes a legend up north of the border.” 

Q19: How does the current squad stand stability-wise? 

A19: “It has been difficult to maintain the current squad as you can only offer players so much.” 

“We are currently in talks with Adam Rundle and Tom Kennedy in regards to extending their contracts.” 

“We’re very close to getting Rundle to sign his extension and McArdle has already signed his.” 

“It’s a short a career and you can’t blame the players when there isn’t that much money available at our level,” answered Keith Hill. 

Q20: How has the playing squad progressed from last season? 

A20: “We’ve progressed in regards to fitness and depth in the squad. And we’re pretty much happy with where we are. However, we need a training complex and it really is the missing piece for us.” 

“Although in saying that, Wrexham had the best facilities in League Two by far and still were relegated,” answered Keith Hill. 

Q21: Have the new lads found it tough catching up in training? 

A21: “The new lads did take a while to catch up, they all said they found it a challenge and they al used to the trip to Spain to really catch up.” 

“Some have come up and told me that they’ve never been as fit in their life, which is epitomised really by the ever improving Gary Jones,” answered Keith Hill. 

“We noticed that we had better fitness levels against Darlington in two of the club’s biggest games in its history. You just have to look at how we responded to going 1-0 against them at Spotland, we were able to go on for longer." 

“The fitness levels were and definitely are there and are even better ahead of this season too,” added David Flitcroft. 

Q22: Where does the club stand in regards to transfer listed Ben Muirhead? 

A22: “Muirhead has been one of life’s disappointments, a bit like my spell at Cheltenham when the manager there wanted me to be his main defender, yet it didn’t work out that way and I hardly played a game.” 

“He’s a popular character and he’s still a member of the first team, but he failed to replicate the form he produced in his loan spell, which is why we made the footballing decision to transfer list him,” answered Keith Hill. 

The club where then asked how they would like supporters to help in regards to finding Dale a permanent training complex.

Hill, Flitcroft the rest of the panel said that a petition that would apply pressure on the Council to help resolve the issue could be one way. 

And there was one petition that I already know of being on Facebook.com as early as last night. 

Either way, I’d imagine there will be better ways of going about forming a petition, than Facebook, and I’m sure we’ll see something from Rochdale supporters sooner or later.

Photo: Action Images

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