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The Rochdaley Telegraph
The Rochdaley Telegraph
Thursday, 25th Oct 2007 08:05

Dale have today been featured in an article in the Daily Telegraph in which they look back at our 100 years of success. Read on for the full article:

Click here for original article

Shevchenkos come and Henrys move on but Rochdale just sit there forever. Unnoticed, except by the terminally afflicted and by gloating neighbours from Bury, the weavers from the valley of the Roch have spent 95 of their first 100 years on the bottom shelf, thus qualifying as The Most Unsuccessful Club in the history of English League football.

Well, it's a title. Although apparently resigned to their destiny like a spider in the bath, Rochdale are mildly self-conscious in this, their centenary season.

"Doesn't look too impressive on paper," admits the chairman, Chris Dunphy, "but we aim to be knocking on the door of the Championship in three years. Scu**horpe and Colchester have proved it can be done." Yeah, right.

Only last season Chris decided 17 years on the board were enough for anyone who valued his sanity. There were more important things in life, like heating medieval churches without destroying the stonework – his speciality. However, as soon as he pledged to give more time to Chris Dunphy Ecclesiastical Ltd, he was press-ganged into the Spotland hot seat because Rochdale couldn't find a willing Uzbek. Whether you call it the Third Division South, League Division Four or Coca-Cola League Two, Dale have hogged Satan's Waiting Room with the tenacity of asylum seekers in the cargo hold. All they have to show for 100 years of largely fruitless endeavour is one solitary promotion in 1968. They came down again in 1973 and have refused to leave their comfort zone ever since.

Even the Conference didn't appeal, though they flirted with non-League football a couple of times. The chairman of Rochdale Supporters' Trust, Scott Goulding, thinks I'm being unreasonable. "How can you say we're unsuccessful? Only one relegation in a century makes us the most consistent club in the country." He has a point.

I was sorry to miss the centenary dinner, during which supporters were invited to nominate the club's most charismatic servants since 1907. After a prolonged silence, someone remembered Little Joe Richardson scoring a brace of goals in the 3-1 defeat of Blackburn Rovers that helped Dale to an improbable League Cup final in 1962. They lost the two-legged climax to Norwich City, but that was by the by.

More noteworthy were the four-legged beasts that Joe bundled into the back of his van and sold on the streets of Liverpool the following day. Kidnapping Alsatians and flogging them as guard dogs for a fiver a time was how he supplemented his meagre earnings from football. Joe's demise was as bizarre as his life. While working as a drayman for Higson's Brewery, he was crushed by a giant beer barrel that rolled off the cart.

Into the Hall of Infamy he goes, along with poor old Billy Rudd, who paid the price for ignoring tradition. Billy had the audacity to captain Rochdale's promotion-winning side before leading them to a club record ninth place in the old Third Division. He was promptly transferred to Bury, with the parting words: "And take your big ideas with you!"

The town is uncomfortable with success. I suggested Rochdale might launch their second century by dropping the name Spotland and rechristening the stadium The Gracie Fields in honour of their most illustrious daughter. I wish I hadn't bothered. One glance at the grimy metal plaque that passes as a memorial to Gracie outside No?9 Molesworth Street would have prepared me for the blank expressions that greeted my remark.

"They haven't forgiven her for moving to Capri," said my taxi driver. "She probably got out before they could sell her to Bury," I replied.

So why are Rochdale so bad and why does anyone support them? For the answers to this conundrum I turned to Christine Fairhurst — or rather I stumbled over her and her meat pie on my way to the press box. "Pass" was her reply to the first part of the question; "because there's nowt else to do" to the second. She and her friend, Mavis Shellard, follow Dale all over the country. Extraordinary in itself but almost beyond credulity when I heard that Christine lives 67 miles away in North Wales and has no DNA association with Rochdale that genealogists have been able to detect.

Perhaps the chairman could help. Was it the usual "Dad brought me here before I could crawl"? Chris nodded, apologetically. "I'll tell you something else," he said. "People who come to Spotland really care. I've been to Premier League grounds and they don't do passion like us."

Only once in 45 years has he felt embarrassed, even slightly humiliated to be a Rochdalian.

It happened on a wet Tuesday last October when they put an end to Macclesfield's record losing run by handing them a 1-0 victory. "I felt so sorry for our 400 fans in the drenching rain. How much worse could it get? Then they burst into song and I knew we'd be OK."

We need clubs like Rochdale, don't we?

Photo: Action Images



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