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?