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Thread | who will help a town like Rochdale
at 09:02 4 Mar 2024
Full page article in the times today about Rochdale, including a bit about the Dale although he does not seen to have got the memo about the Yanks.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/who-will-help-blighted-towns-like-rochdale-zf
link above. or Text Below
he Rochdale by-election has been turned over every which way but one. George Galloway has become the first MP since Winston Churchill to enter parliament for a fourth separate constituency. There has since been plenty of speculation about what all this means for Galloway, what it all means for the Labour Party, what it all means for Reform UK and what it all means for the general election.
Rishi Sunak even dragged the podium into Downing Street for an impromptu Friday-evening press conference to tell us what it all means for the future of democracy. But nobody seems interested in what it means for Rochdale.
Rochdale is one of my towns, if not any longer my kind of town. My father lived there for many years and long ago I wrote a novel about the place. It was a tale of good lives lived and made meaningful with embroidery, gardening and Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. It was, in fact, a nostalgic story about the good that a community provides. And truly, it did.
Rochdale was once the epicentre of a technological revolution. Innovations in spinning and weaving, and the construction in 1804 of the Rochdale Canal turned this small town on the river Roch into one of the most important centres for cotton processing in the world. By the end of the 19th century, the sounds of the woollen mills, the silk makers, the bleachers and dyers meant the town buzzed with the associated trades of textile manufacturing, just like corporate lawyers and auditors gather around the City of London. The Pennine Valley then was Silicon Valley today.
The newspapers of the 1840s conducted a debate about how unequal Britain was becoming. Was there any hope that benighted places down south could ever catch up with somewhere as dynamic as Rochdale? Reflection upon prosperity turned Rochdale into an ideas factory too. The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, created the modern co-operative movement that remains an important part of the federal Labour Party. The Rochdale Pioneers established voluntary programmes that provided affordable food and clothes in their stores, education classes, the building of houses and work for unemployed or badly paid members on land cultivated by the co-operative.
These benefits derived from the “Rochdale Principles”, devised by the Pioneers as the basis of the co-operative movement, which they remain to this day. A better orator than Sunak would surely have used the Rochdale Principles to illustrate how modern politics mocks the ambitions of those who went before. The Rochdale Principles demand that membership be open to all, that the co-operative should be subject to the democratic control that grants one person one vote, that all should be a paid a dividend in proportion to what each contributed, that the co-operative should be strictly neutral with respect to politics and religion.
That doesn’t sound much like Rochdale today. At Spotland, the home of Rochdale’s football club, the present is overwhelming the past. After many and varied troubles, Rochdale AFC, in the pioneer spirit, are owned by their fans. The trouble is that there aren’t enough of them and they don’t have any money. In the shadow of the two big Manchester clubs, Rochdale cannot compete and, on Thursday, unless a couple of million pounds has been forthcoming, 117 years of Rochdale football club may come to an end at an extraordinary general meeting.
It would be terribly sad. Towns like Rochdale need community institutions because the place is visibly struggling. The cotton industry fell victim to cheaper imports as long ago as the 1960s and the whole population can’t work in shops. There are 110,000 people in this town and I worry that too many of them seem defeated. Every time I am in Rochdale I am struck by the fact that this is a sick place, by which I mean, to lapse into the local tongue, that the people are poorly.
In the 2021 census, a fifth of all residents were recognised as disabled under the Equality Act and a fifth described themselves as not in a good state of health. A boy born in Rochdale will have about three years fewer of life expectancy than the average born Englishman. In that census, Rochdale ranked in the bottom fifth of local authorities for the health of its population.
Rochdale is also a poor place. Stand on George Street and count as ten children go by. Three of them will be growing up in a home blighted by poverty. If the gang comes from Milkstone, round the back of the railway station, five of them will. One in six of the families here struggle to keep the heating aflame and one in eight to put food on the table. The census data records Rochdale as the 15th most income-deprived place in the country. This poverty has consequences. The children of Rochdale are behind the national average on language development, reading ability and mathematics capability by the end of the foundation stage. They never catch up.
This is the point about Rochdale to which attention must be paid. Rochdale is a bi-cultural town, 74 per cent white and 19 per cent Asian and there is no question — the election of the divisive Galloway confirms and exacerbates this — that there are tensions. In the case of the Heywood sex grooming scandal, worse than tensions, much worse. But, still, it is reasonable to say that people in Rochdale can live together. The town has not been the site of race riots like Bradford and Oldham.
The core problem that Rochdale faces is not the ethnic composition that will receive too many write-ups but the fact that there isn’t enough money. In Yorkshire Street even the pound shops advertise money off. Fifteen miles away Manchester is thriving but the wealth doesn’t trickle down here. A quarter of the population are economically inactive and this bloodless phrase hides an epidemic of illnesses.
The people of Rochdale have been sounding the trumpets from the city walls. The protests pile up: Gillian Duffy to Gordon Brown, a Brexit vote over 60 per cent, the return of the fedora fool as the next MP.
Galloway has promised he will save Rochdale AFC, move Primark to the centre of town and make the market a rival to Bury. He won’t, of course. He has a historic grievance and a futile campaign to wage about a desperate conflict far away that means little or nothing to most locals. It is obvious that Galloway has nothing interesting to say about Rochdale. The trouble is that nobody else does either. |
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Reply | Podcasts
at 14:56 21 Dec 2023
There is also the Dale Way.
Ran for about 5 episodes from 21/11/2021 to 10/1/2023 |
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Reply | Paul Cook and his various voices
at 16:01 27 Sep 2023
I did a quick google, apparently is not the first time this has happened!
A few clips online are worth looking at. |
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Thread | Paul Cook and his various voices
at 09:35 27 Sep 2023
Did anyone see the post-match interview with Paul Cook last night on TNT Sports?
The guy seems to be almost bi-polar switching between various personalities mid interview. You have the gruff Scouser and then he switches to a fast high-pitched voice, then back again…
I have noticed this before with him, very strange.
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Reply | "Just a girl from Rochdale"
at 08:35 20 Aug 2023
Another dale link to todays World Cup final, is Alex greenwood. When jack O’Connell was at dale she was a regular at every home game. Very young scouse girl at the time, but sat next to Her a few times in the hospitality section, where the WAGs congregated.
Good luck to her today, I had no idea she was a footballer at the time. |
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Reply | Fixture planning
at 14:01 28 Jul 2023
That is good to hear. I did think i had not seen them for a while. Yes you cant blame them! Not been the best 3 or 4 years really! |
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Reply | Fixture planning
at 08:19 28 Jul 2023
Good point. Are they all still with us? |
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Reply | Fixture planning
at 20:18 27 Jul 2023
Thanks Sandy,
interesting looking at the names on here, a good many are still regulars, some are no longer with us, some have give up the ghost, and others have taken up a career in Refereeing!
Steve Ashworth; Warren Brierley; Kevin Jenkinson; Carl Jenkinson; Bernice Jenkinson; Jan Harwood; Anthony Kaminskas snr; Stuart Ashworth; Francis Collins; Peter Riley; Nick Johnson; Anthony Kaminskas; David Chaffey; Josh Bearshaw; Paul Bearshaw; Alan Hoyle; John Parry; Nick Brierley; Chris Brierley; Tony Unsworth; Kieran Unsworth; Naomi Unsworth; Graham Veevers; Richard Wild; David Veevers; Geoff Ferguson; Steven Phillipps; Rod Sunderland; Colin Wild; Alasdair Orr; Joanne Wild; Roger Wild; Steven Crossley; Peter Newton; Jackie Ferguson; Paul Veevers; Caroline Fogarty; Paul Leedham, Chris Commins, Jay Goulding, Mike Healey, Bill Midgeley, Lee Whitehead, John Fisher, Wayne Hartley. |
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Reply | Fixture planning
at 10:13 27 Jul 2023
good. Now we just have to worry about the train strikes. Twice last year i had train tickets for Dale Games, and had to have them re-funded. |
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Reply | Fixture planning
at 19:06 26 Jul 2023
Thanks Guys,
Do we know how long before a game they have to give notice if its likely to be moved for TV? I have booked train tickets to Kiddie, Dorking, York already. Woking and Borehamwood i will drive straight from work.
Ref Q1 and 941 - This could be broken straight away at Oxford City, although annoyingly i cant do that one. Only two attendances over 800 last year.
https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/oxford-city/attendances/2022-2023
I do remember the Swansea game now, the Observer did an article about it as i imagine would have TVOS! |
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Thread | Fixture planning
at 17:37 26 Jul 2023
I have this afternoon been busy booking up train tickets and planning my away matches for the first part of the season. I could not help noticing how many are far away from Rochdale often on a Tuesday evening. It got me thinking.
1. What is Dale’s lowest ever competitive post war away attendance?
2. What is the lowest number of Dale fans at a competitive away game post war?
Looking at some of the fixtures I would think both of the above records have a fair chance of being broken over the next 9 months. Woking, Borehamwood, Dorking, etc etc
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Reply | The RochdaleAFC.com Podcast Episode 76
at 09:22 14 Jul 2023
Agree.
Really good to have the boys back. In these uncertain times it was like putting on on old pair of slippers! Real surprise when it appeared on my podcast list. Hope the return will be permanent.
Good work lads. |
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Reply | Pat McCourt
at 15:31 10 Jul 2023
Her skirt and underwear were forensically examined and although a mixed profile of four DNA samples was found, none of them was McCourt's.
DNA was clear. |
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Reply | Next Seasons National League Confirmed!
at 19:48 14 May 2023
Which leads to the inevitable question how many grounds have you visited - I make it 11/24
AFC Fylde
Aldershot Town yes
Altrincham FC
Barnet FC yes
Boreham Wood yes
Bromley FC
Chesterfield FC yes
Dagenham & Redbridge yes
Dorking Wanderers
Eastleigh FC
Ebbsfleet United
FC Halifax Town yes
Gateshead FC
Hartlepool United yes
Kidderminster Harriers yes
Maidenhead United
Oldham Athletic yes
Oxford City
Rochdale AFC yes
Solihull Moors
Southend United yes
Wealdstone FC |
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Reply | National league play offs
at 06:46 14 May 2023
on the plus side Chesterfield away is always a good day out. Preferred the old Rickety Saltergate ground though.
Oxford City V St Albans today
and Brackley Town V Kiddie |
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Reply | Dixie Dean and the Dale
at 11:53 13 May 2023
Just done a bit more research on this. I think the match in question took place during season 22-23. Dale lost 2-0 on April 7th, with approx. 7000 fans watching the game.
According to ‘Rochdale AFC the official History’ Davy Parkes was the Dale skipper at the time and used to warm up with two pints in the church inn. |
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Thread | Dixie Dean and the Dale
at 08:10 13 May 2023
Interesting story about Dixie Dean and the Dale in the Daily Mail (bit of a tongue twister).
Never heard of this before but others might.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12078223/Erling-Haaland-visit
‘Saturday was the day he would come alive. He scored 27 times for Tranmere in 33 games before signing for Everton in March 1925, but his career was almost over before it started. As a 17-year-old, he was kicked in the groin during a game against Rochdale at Prenton Park.
Dean had scored two goals, but a defender called Davy Parkes took umbrage to what was happening and hit him so hard he needed to have a testicle removed. Seventeen years later, so Dean recalled, he met Parkes in a bar in Chester. This time, it was the latter who would end up in hospital.’
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Reply | Two Down- End of an era (5)
at 19:45 8 May 2023
Thanks guys for the positive feedback. It seemed an appropriate time to jot down a few thoughts. Sometimes it’s easier to write things down, I find it helps. A problem shared and all that, |
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