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100 Memories for 100 Years - 100 to 96
100 Memories for 100 Years - 100 to 96
Wednesday, 27th Jun 2007 17:04

We kick off our 100 Memories for 100 Years series with a look at some of the good, the bad and downright awful.

Dale Great - Alan Johnson

His time with Dale was over all too fast. In fact, whilst he may have been at the club for around a few seasons in total, it was in reality just one season that we got out of Alan Johnson.

He was brought to the club by Graham Barrow and up until that point in his career, he hadn't really done a great deal. He'd spent some time at Wigan and a bit more at Lincoln, followed by a spell playing in Hong Kong before arriving at Spotland.

He made an immediate impact, forming a great partnership at the back with current Dale boss Keith Hill. In what was an otherwise largely forgettable season, Johnson was one of the few highlights.

He was everything. For a start, just by the way he looked, he'd have scared the s**t out of most forwards in our division. It was no wonder that he attracted the nickname of Psycho. You just would not get past him.

But for someone who looked as menacing as he did, he was a very clean player. His reading of the game was wonderful, and whilst if he tackled you you'd have known about it, he always did so fairly and for a central defender of his type, he picked up very few bookings. He'd be flying in to tackles, but would always get the ball.

But after one season where he was ever present and walked away with practically every Player of the Season trophy going, then that was it. In the pre-season build up to the following year, he picked up a ligament injury which if memory serves me right ended up being misdiagnosed, and it eventually transpired that it was a cruciate injury, ruling him out for the whole of the next season, and most of the next.

We had a brief comeback from him where he managed a handful of appearances from him, but it was never the same, and that injury had pretty much robbed him of his career. A real shame for both the club and the player. But while it lasted, there was no one better.

Great Goal - Dagnall v Rushden

Now our overall performance in this game was dire. Completely dire. And Chris Dagnall should never have been given the chance in the first place to get us an equaliser. Had there been any justice, Rushden would have won this game at a canter. That said, had there been any justice, Drewe Broughton would have been struck by lightning within the opening ten minutes.

But enter the Rushden supporters. Now the use of the footballing gods has been mentioned many, many times on the messageboard over the past couple of years. For as the Rushden supporters taunted the Dale supporters in the final few minutes that we were "Going Down with the Torquay" (and let it be said, we were indeed heading to the Conference at this point), there was only ever going to be one outcome.

And from out of nowhere, Dagnall was put through. He turned one defender and left him in his wake, and the Dale support which had been plotting their own funerals in the minutes beforehand, suddenly rose up in anticipation.

Daggers was now clear of the defence with just the keeper to beat, who fired past from just inside the penalty box to silence the taunting home support. Of course, the away support refused to leave the ground with the loudest chorus all afternoon of "Going down with the Torquay" back at the home support.

Now it was a very well taken goal anyway, but in terms of the effect that it had on the club cannot be overestimated. Rushden were certainly on a revival, coming into this game on the back of a five game unbeaten stretch, and we were sinking further and further towards the drop. Defeat would have took Rushden above us, and leave us just one point of relegation.

But that goal all but knocked the stuffing out of Rushden, killing off their revival and gave us sufficient lift that we lost just once in our final six games. Was it a goal which kept us in the Football League? I'd be very tempted to say that it was.

Great Game - Dale 3 Torquay 3

The season 86-87 was amongst the poorest that the club has suffered over the years. The football was dire, and we came very close to losing our league status. But despite that, it is a season that is now looked back on with a great fondness by Dale supporters, with many a great moment along the way.

Indeed, all the emotions of that turbulent season seemed to be summed up in this game. It was November 1986, on a typically dismal Rochdale afternoon, and Torquay United were the visitors to Spotland.

Now Dale were deep in the first ever relegation battle when this game was played, and we hadn't even reached Christmas yet. We were in 22nd place. Fortunately for Dale, we were at home to a team who were one of only two teams in the Football League to be below us, and this looked to be a great opportunity to put some space between ourselves and Torquay and Stockport, especially when we had thumped the Gulls 5-0 at Spotland on an even more depressing Spotland afternoon the previous season.

But when have Dale in our 100 year history been anything else other than unpredictable? Or should that be we have always been predictable in doing what we were not supposed to do? Who cares? Anyway, the game was every bit as drab as it sounded, and the 1251 crowd must have been thinking they had made a big mistake turning up, especially when Torquay raced into a three nil lead.

Now it would have been great to say that their lead was against the run of play, that Torquay had been the recipient of some dodgy decisions or something along those sort of lines, but we can't. Whilst Torquay may not have deserved to be three goals up, we certainly deserved to be three goals down and by the time they opened the gates with fifteen minutes to go, there was a queue of people waiting to leave.

But then something very special happened. With less than fifteen minutes to go, our forward line which consisted of Peter Conning, a striker with a goal record laughed at by Mark Leonard and Graham Shaw, had near enough waved the white flag. Enter the Dale defence.

From out of nowhere, with much of the crowd already left, Dale produced the comeback of all comebacks, scoring three goals in the last fifteen minutes. Defender John Bramhall got two goals, and a very rare goal by left back Dave Grant silenced the anti Vic Halom chants (it proved to be his last league game in charge anyway!), and stunned the visitors with a comeback of a proportion we have not seen since.

I always remember this game for two reasons. First of all, my Dad was one of the many walking out with just over ten minutes to go, and he assumed it had been a mistake when Grandstand's Vidiprinter came up with the 3-3 scoreline.

Unfortunately, the second reason for remembering this game has left me as one of life's eternal optimists. Because I have seen Dale pull a three goal deficit back once, every game has been recoverable in my eyes ever since. The fact that we have not produced anything close to this in the sixteen years since it happened counts for nothing. Dale have always and will always be capable of coming back from any scoreline. Even when trailing 3-0 at Anfield at half time, I was wondering about the effect an early second half Dale goal could have on the game. Just a shame someone only told Peter Valentine half the script!

Oh Dear - Dean Walling

Now there's no doubting that after leaving us, he went on to have a good career. Indeed, Carlisle fans will swear by him as being one of the best central defenders that they've had in the past twenty years, but the problem was that for us, we had Dean Walling as a striker. And he was dreadful.

In his favour, he could not be faulted for his enthusiasm. He tried his heart out in ever single game, so he got a bit of admiration that way, but you could pick any one from the terraces at Spotland, and you wouldn't get much difference.

We got him from Leeds back in the mid 80's and whilst it may have worked out in the case of Lyndon Simmonds, in terms of Dean Walling, it was pretty much a flop.

His time at Dale saw him score eight goals in two seasons. Now fair enough, a lot of his appearances were off the bench, but he made about seventy appearances during that time. Taitesque.

The most memorable thing that Walling was ever involved in was on Tuesday night game at Spotland, when he had his shorts completely ripped off during a game, and the then physio had to run on and replace his shorts in the centre of the Spotland pitch.

Only at Rochdale - the Peter Ward miss

Now let it be said, that Peter Ward was one of the best players to have played for the club during the 1980's. Fair enough, given the dirge of talent we had during that decade that might not be saying that much, but Ward was a great player for us, and went on to star at both Wrexham and Stockport too where he is currently assistant manager to Jim Gannon.

But aside from coming back and sneaking off with the Golden Gamble money one week when he was scouting for County, he is remembered for one thing - his last minute miss against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup.

It was a great game for Dale, as we made the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time in our history. We'd gone down there, and spent pretty much the entire game getting battered. Had it not been for keeper Keith Welch, we could have conceded ten goals that day - definitely one of the best individual performances in our history.

But we had a chance. The sort of chance that in games like this you only get one off. Last minute, we're trailing 1-0, and the ball gets crossed into the centre with Peter Ward lurking with just the simple task of making contact with the ball, and everything else should take care of itself.

The two away ends holding the Dale support took a collective draw of breath as the ball came to Ward, only to let out a collective sigh as Palace keeper Nigel Martyn pulled off a save which was famously called a "million pound save" on Match of the Day later that night.

It was our chance, and we'd missed it. Of course, it's completely unfair that we call it a Peter Ward miss when it was on target and therefore a Nigel Martyn save, but even scoring the winner in the nine men win at Turf Moor can't change my overriding memory of Peter Ward being the one who missed that last minute chance.

It goes without saying that had we took them back to Spotland for a replay, we'd have beaten them, and then had no problems beating Cambridge in the quarter finals who we'd already done the double over that season. If it wasn't for that chance, we'd have gone all the way and won the FA Cup itself. Probably. And then spent the rest of our lives boring the pants off people by reminding them about it. Probably for the best then.

Photo: Action Images



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