| If you want a report of this game, then you may as well read any of the other reports of home matches from this season, as you'll be reading virtually the same thing. The pattern is getting almost identical now. You know what's coming up. Yep, you've guessed it. Dale had all the possession, but just couldn't do anything with it in the final third of the pitch. It's been a common problem for Dale throughout the season, and although various arguments rage about the reasons behind it, what is more worrying is that there appears to be no signs of it improving.
A crowd of 2700 turned up at Spotland with around just under a couple of hundred coming up from Gloucestershire. Thankfully a dry Friday guaranteed that the game went ahead, and in all honesty, the pitch looked in a pretty decent condition.
There was just the one change from the team that came so close to beating Chesterfield last week, with Neil Edwards returning in goal in place of Matty Gilkes. Lee Todd kept his place in the side, despite previous reports suggesting that he would be suspended for this game, and Tony Ford retained his starting place on the left, with new signing Andy Turner having to make do with a place on the bench. Cheltenham went into the game unchanged for the third game in succession.
Within the opening few minutes, it was clear that this home performance would be no different to any others that we have seen this season, and that was how it transpired for much of the game. Cheltenham looked their usual selves, with a bit of pace in the team which caused us a bit of a problem.
Dale in the first half offered very little at all, and with most of the play taking place in the middle of the park, opportunities were few and far between. Dale couldn't break down the iron wall at the heart of the Cheltenham defence, and they were looking to attack on the break.
After thirteen minutes, the unthinkable happened, and Cheltenham took the lead in what I thought was an excellent goal. It came following a Mark Yates which looked certain to go into the top corner, but Neil Edwards produced a fantastic save to stop it going in, but the save saw the ball go straight to Grayson who fired home from a very tight angle, before choosing to celebrate in front of the Sandy Lane pie bar for some strange reason.
Hopes that this would kickstart Dale's performance were soon dashed, as the game just continued in much the same vein as it had started, and you wouldn't have actually bet against Cheltenham increasing their lead.
Things were soon much worse for Dale, a Simon Coleman backpass saw Neil Edwards have a race on to collect it. He managed that successfully, but Cheltenham player Charlie Macdonald left his foot in at the challenge injuring the diminutive Welshmen in the process. Taffy did his best to carry on, but it was clear to him that the injury was too much and fair play to him, he was honest enough to admit that he couldn't continue. That meant a second appearance in succession for Matthew Gilkes.
At the other end, Graham Lancashire raced down a ball alongside former Shaymen Mark Sertori. Lancashire found himself on the floor, and Sertori was booked. There were calls for Sertori to be sent off, as he was the last man at the time, but Lancashire didn't seem to be in much chance of winning the ball, and perhaps the referee took this into consideration. The free kick saw loan signing Andy Turner, who had made an early sub appearance in place of Tony Ford, have a decent effort, but it went over the bar before causing any problems.
Simon Coleman had Dale's best effort of the first half, when he got his big bald head on the end of a corner from the right, but he saw his effort hit the cross bar, before falling into the hands of Cheltenham keeper Book.
The second half saw no major improvements from Dale, and the game soon redescended into another lull. When called upon, Matty Gilkes did brilliantly, and looked an excellent deputee. He looked very capable at crosses, and is a good shot stopper too. His kicks were a bit erratic last evening, but I'm sure ironic cheers from the terraces and stands did his confidence the world of good.
Dale did actually get the ball in the back of the net, when Keith Hill fired home from within the six yards box, but the referee, who had made strange decisions all evening, disallowed it for an alleged foul by Simon Coleman who crossed the ball over. Homer Coleman appeared to do nothing wrong.
The equaliser came with just over fifteen minutes to go, and it came in rather strange circumstances. Cheltenham defender Michael Duff allowed the ball to go back to keeper Steve Book at the edge of the box, but somehow record signing Paul Connor managed to get inbetween them, nip in, and then have the very easy task of sticking the ball into empty net. My first thoughts were that it would be disallowed, if only for the fact that the referee had erred on the side of caution all night, but there were no complaints from Cheltenham players.
I think what happened was that as the Cheltenham keeper approached the edge of his penalty area, he was terrified of handling the ball outside of his box, as Edwards did and was punished for it at Southend, and this caused panic in the mind of Book, and Connor was on hand to take full advantage of this. Being narrow minded and petty, I have still held a grudge against Book when he took a dive and feigned injury after a Clive Platt challenge in the opening game of last season, so to see him make a fool of himself like this was worth waiting for.
It was now a case of seeing whether Dale had it in them to battle for all three points, rather than just a share of the spoils. However, within seconds of our goal, we almost found ourselves trailing again. Cheltenham won a corner, and the ball was headed goalwards by the folically challenged Grayson. His effort rebounded off the far post and was then collected by Matty Gilkes on the goalline. I'm sure the linesman was in line with play, hence the decision not to award a goal.
There was still time for more controversy though, and Cheltenham's Mark Yates had a disagreement with Gary Jones. Such a disagreement that he appeared to stamp on his head in the process. The referee obviously didn't see this, but the linesman on the Willbutts Lane side of the ground did, and he raced ten yards onto the pitch to let the referee know that he had seen an incident, just as he is now entitled to do. However, after running on ten yards, he just stood there sheepishly, and didn't even bother to wave his flag to try and attract the referee's attention. Bottled it!
After that, it was pretty much a case of both team cancelling each other out. Obviously, Cheltenham must have been happy with a draw as they brought Julian Alsop on for the last few minutes, thus denying themselves any hopes of a last minute winner, much to the delight of the Dale supporters who have seen last minute goals in two of the last three matches.
On the positive side, Paul Connor was excellent again today, and it could have been much worse had we lost against one of our promotion rivals. On the other side of the coin, we have now gone ten league games without a victory. With just eleven games to go now, we need to start winning pretty soon, if we are to take advantage of the position we are in.
The home form needs sorting out pretty soon. Perhaps the answer is to play all our matches away between now and the end of the season, or before the next home game, get the players on a coach and get them to do a lap of the M60 before the game.
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