Ten men Dale pulled off a superb victory in their first home game of the season.  Full match report online now.

Whenever Col goes away and asks me to do a match report, it usually turns out to be a boring game where I’m commenting on how good the food to fill up space or it’s an awful performance where we get battered.  Today looked like being another one of them poor matches in which we were looking likely to get beat but instead it had the best possible ending.   

Dale just about managed to come away from the game with a 1-0 win thanks to a Tom Kennedy penalty in the third minute of stoppage time.  This after Dale had played over 75 minutes of the game with 10 men thanks to Nathan Stanton picking up a straight red card. 

There have been a few ins and outs at Spotland this week and with Adam Le Fondre leaving and Hilly signing Scott Spencer, Matt Flynn and Dale Stephens and all three new recruits were included in the squad.  Matt Flynn started at right back with Scott Wiseman making his comeback from illness on the bench.  Stephens and Spencer were also on the bench with Edwards, Holness, Shaw and Higginbotham.  Therefore the starting line-up included Arthur, Flynn, TK, Stanton, Dawson, Thompson, Rundle, Jones, JK, Buckley and Dagnall. 

The opening exchanges came and went without anything to write about really, until the 13^th minute that is.   

Nathan Stanton, as good as he is, is very frustrating as it’s always him who’s arguing with officials, picking up bookings for dissent and he’s our most likely person to get sent off one way or another and he did it again today. 

He was skinned completely by the big lanky Marvin Morgan up front and as Stanton tried to make amends, he pulled back Morgan and who was one on one with Kenny Arthur at the time so the referee had no option whatsoever but to show the red card. 

The resulting free kick was hit straight into the wall and Dale cleared their lines before Keith Hill was forced to rethink all his tactics and brought on Marcus Holness to replace Adam Rundle. 

At that point the mood turned negative and I for one feared the worst. As you’d expect, Aldershot got on top from then and created a few chances.   

Kenny Arthur must have spotted a photographer in the crowd as he dived full stretch to make a good save and even kept hold of it. 

Marvin Morgan slashed a shot across the face of goal before Tom Kennedy cleared. 

Dale began to settle and got into the game more.  Craig Dawson headed over from a Jason Kennedy cross before Chris Dagnall had a shot go narrowly wide just before the half time whistle went but I’ll have to take the word of my Dad for that as I was in the food queue getting Papa Chaff a brew. 

It’s fair to say that Aldershot shaded the first half and it was pretty evident that they had the man advantage over Dale but the second half couldn’t have been any different as Dale completely dominated from the whistle. 

Will Buckley had a great chance to score and will be disappointed that he didn’t.  He picked up the ball 25 yards out and ghosted past three defenders before hitting a tame shot right into the hands of the keeper. 

A goalmouth scramble from a corner resulted in Craig Dawson picking up the ball, hitting it against the legs of a defender before Buckley again picked the ball up and struck it against the keeper’s legs though he didn’t seem to know much about it. 

Tom Kennedy swung in a free kick with Will Buckley unmarked but the ball was just too far in front of him to head it and he managed to get a toe to it and flick it about an inch over the bar when we all thought it was going in. 

Aldershot did manage a rare chance in the second half but a shot was superbly saved by Kenny Arthur who tipped it round the post. Matt Flynn made way for Scott Wiseman with just over 20 minutes left. 

Gary Jones and Chris Dagnall had linked up well all game and Daggers’ effort up front on his own was immense.  He had a good chance to score but his excellent effort was well saved by the keeper after Jones had set him up. 

With stoppage time being signalled by the fourth official, Dale continued to push for a winner and just when we’d settled for a point, Chris Dagnall found himself in the clear from a great pass from Jones and he cut back inside and blasted the ball at Hinshelwood who was as shocked as us when the referee blew and pointed to the spot for handball.

Tom Kennedy stepped up and smashed home the penalty for a fantastic winner.   It was deserved though given Dale’s fantastic performance.  Rarely have I seen a performance as good with ten men for well over three quarters of the game and if felt fantastic to get off the mark at home with a win.

Photo: Action Images

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