And never was that more evident than today. Accrington have had a fantastic season, and based on messageboard mood, there is great respect amongst the Dale support for everything Coleman has done at Stanley, and a desire to see Stanley fight it out amongst the big money clubs amongst the Play Offs.

Those knowing nothing about football will no doubt have had Stanley down as relegation certainties, and given the financial problems that they've overcome this season (and doing so in the right way rather the one step fix that administration brings), few could have blamed them had they succumbed to a relegation dogfight.

But the self styled "Club that Wouldn't Die" are made of stronger stuff, and Coleman has put together a decent footballing side that are a match for any side in this division, and we were in no doubt what a difficult encounter this would be.

But equally a bit of praise for ourselves. They say every dog has its day, and it's been woof, woof, woof on many a day this season, as we've sold to survive on two occasions this season, yet have still confounded the critics week in, week out by continuing to lead League Two.

And with not far off 150 supporters doing their bit to raise over ten grand by walking the fifteen miles over Owd Betts to Accrington, it shows yet again that there remains a place in football for supporters, who are not just customers. I guess it wouldn't have been Dale had the weather not brought continual rain along the way for the first time in days and news of a possible postponement upon arrival in Accy.

That said, the omens were certainly better than the weather was. The pub quiz machine for the breakfast vodka offered up a category of footballing mottos. Jaws were dropped as the answer was Crede Signo. "It's a sign" remarked one. Yep, and we believe in it.

Looking around the ground, it seemed that there were Dale fans everywhere. Even the home ends seemed to have more than their fair share of blue and black in them, as the home supporters were outnumbered by members of Keith Hill's travelling army. There'll be none of that for us next season.

The first half was pretty much a non event. On a pitch that would have been more suited to attractive young ladies wrestling around in, you could certainly understand pre-match concerns that the game would not be going ahead. Parts of it were in a terrible state, but thankfully the surface water had all but gone by the time the game kicked off.

You could probably recall all of the first half in the space of a paragraph. I don't think we actually threatened at any stage, and I can only recall one effort from the home side either. Obviously this equates in Colemanworld to Accrington being much the better side, but in the real world, it had stalemate written all over and the second half goalfest looked to be a million miles away.

The Accrington chance came within the opening fifteen minutes, with impressive movement from the Accy front two. It allowed Symes with a clean break into the box, though clean wasn't perhaps the word on this mudbath, but he saw his effort tipped over by Fielding.

The closest that we came to scoring left us scratching our heads and wondering whether Jason Kennedy will ever score for us? For all his wonderful midfield play, there's that certain element to his game that he did against us for Darlo that's been absent since joining us. Perhaps irony will ensure that he does it against Tommy Lee in a fortnight.

But his miss today saw him blast the ball over and out of the ground from within the home side's penalty box, after some neat passing football from Dale which at the very least hinted at better things to come.

But we had to wait for those better things, as we pressed the self destruct button early in the second half. In fact, we pressed it twice.

Good passing from the home side led to their opener, as they took full advantage of a gap between McArdle and Stanton, with Symes ghosting in to finish past Fielding with ease much to the delight of the megaphones, flags and drums behind the goal.

And in felt like within sixty seconds that advantage was doubled. We never really looked comfortable after Fielding came racing out of his goal towards the far corner flag to clear the ball, but he could do nothing about Miles' goal. Again, it was excellent movement from the home side as they pinged the ball about as if they were us, and at 2-0 down, this certainly wasn't the sort of scoreline which had seen almost 150 of us get up at the crack of dawn to walk the fifteen miles up, down and up some more hills.

But never, ever write this side off, and perhaps we are at our most dangerous as the wounded beast. The second goal was like prodding us with a stick. 2-0 down asked massive questions about our spirit, our belief and our pride. And every one of those questions was successfully answered.

Put simply, if you want to be Champions, you have to play like Champions.

So we did, and aside from their numerous kick offs, I'm not entirely sure whether Accrington had another kick of the ball in the remainder of the game. And we stepped up a gear to a level that Stanley had no answer to whatsoever. You almost feel that this Dale side enjoy the challenge, and would back themselves at 4-0 down with time running out against Barcelona, despite being down to nine men. There is nothing this magnificent side of ours cannot do.

Let it be said, the timing of our first goal helped enormously. Almost straight from the restart we went down field and pulled one back. The usual O'Grady bamboozling showed that in another life, he'd make a fantastic winger, before putting the ball over to a lurking Gary Jones to give him his second goal of the season.

At 2-1, there were no thoughts at all about whether we could grab another and snatch a point. It was always simply about the win, and a potential equaliser would just be a step towards that.

We thought we had the equaliser, but we saw Joey T's effort ruled out for "doing a Nugent". An O'Grady shot was too powerful for the keeper to deal with and it went spinning towards the goal before Thompson got a final touch on it to seal it only to see it ruled out for offside. The feeling from behind the goal was that had Thompson not nugented it, then the ball would have gone in anyway and the goal would have stood.

But fear not, because at this point the home defence were facing something akin to a Zulu onslaught as we launched wave after wave of attack. It was only going to be a matter of time.

And up stepped that man Jones again. A few weeks ago, he probably felt a little detached from the proceedings at Spotland. Frozen out of the side due to the excellent form of Taylor and Kennedy, and even his cameos hadn't really contributed as much as many of the others had. Not now.

For if as we all hope that Jones finishes this season becoming the first Rochdale player to lift silverware, he'll know that he has a hugely influential reason behind that. He's certainly enjoying an Indian Summer to his career.

There was perhaps a touch of luck to his second, but when you make things happen like Dale do, you earn that luck, and when his blast from the edge of the box cannoned off Luke Joyce into the back of the net, you knew that we were witnesses to something very special happening right in front of us.

An added twist came when we saw both sides have a man red carded. Very few people actually saw when went on but from my eagle eyed terrace position sixty yards away, Jason Taylor was lying on the floor with Symes on top of him with both players grappling away. Unfortunately, the ref took a dim view of things and sent both players off. This was a real blow for us because Jason Taylor had been the game's best player up until this point and had been immaculate in midfield.

Kallum Higginbotham was sent on as a sub, and showed yet again what a player he is capable of becoming. From being a dead cert to be shown the door a few months back, he is playing with a real sense of belief and right now, he's giving us a completely different edge. He just seems to ride challenges for fun, and even when he goes to ground, he still somehow retains possession. Will who?

But for all his fancy stuff, it was the simplest of passes from Higginbotham which won us the game. He calmly passed the ball out left to an unmarked O'Grady who curled the ball past the outstretched keeper in an almost identical way to how he scored against Rotherham earlier this month.

The win was complete, and yet again, another piece of history had been written right in front of us. As written above, we needed to play like Champions to get something out of this game, and nobody could deny us our right for that particular mantle after a display like this.

Yes, it took us a while to get going, but when it clicked like it did in the last twenty minutes at the Crown Ground, we are untouchable, and it would take a very one eyed home supporter to deny that by the 90th minute, the away victory was anything but completely deserved.

And with news filtering through of defeats to Bournemouth and Bury as we played out the final few minutes of the game, it would appear that promotion is now a near certainty as very few bookies are still taking bets on that happening, and who knows, we might just see a Dave Flitcroft swansong at Barnet in May.

Oh aye, it would appear, something's been missed out.

Kallum Higginbotham.

He always scores against Stanley. So in the 95th minute, he did exactly that. And what a way of continuing his fine goalscoring record against our Lancastrian neighbours.

And in perhaps the way that the 80's were defined by the Wakenshaw goal, and the 90's were defined by the Flounders goal, have we just seen a decade defining goal from Higginbotham? As Dagnall chased down a clearance from the home keeper, Higgy knew exactly what his intentions well before he got near the ball.

He let fly from a position level with the dugouts. Fifty? sixty yards? And it hung in the air for a good few seconds as emotions went from "this should see out a few more seconds" to "it's got a chance this y'know" to "yaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh". Or words to that effect.

A stunning finish from the man who spent time on loan at Stanley and fully deserved. You can't beat those goals which prove to be the last nail in the coffin, fully sealing the victory. Of course, Coleman had reasons to find fault and complain to the officials over this goal, but why change the habit of a lifetime? He's a fantastic manager is Coleman, and he's done wonders at Accrington, but he doesn't half like to moan.

4-2 to Dale and a remarkable comeback is sealed and done so in absolute style. We are truly spoilt. Again.

As the fans departed from the terrace, the players reappeared for what was no doubt deemed to be a warming down exercise but was in reality nothing but a "go and milk it lads" as the players and fans proved to be as one. This really was Team Rochdale in evidence and I don't remember ever seeing as many smiles in one place before.

And so, the lead at the top is extended again, and the gap between ourselves and the sides fighting it out for that third spot is not even worth trying to calculate any more.

The gap isn't points, it's light years.