100 Memories for 100 Years
Wednesday, 27th Jun 2007 16:41

Okay, this is our explanation page about what our 100 Memories for 100 Years is all about.

Dale Great

Let it be said right from the start, this will not just be a list of the best players to have played for the club. This is the sort of players that from my time as a Dale fan have contributed in some way. In certain cases, there's an acknowledgement of players from before my time, but in general it's pretty much a case of listing some of my favourite players to have played for Dale over the years with reasons given. In making it "favourite players" rather than best players, it takes away from the natural bias of selecting players from the past 10-20 years. After all, how could anyone really compare the likes of Ben Muirhead and Dennis Butler and justifiably say which is the better player? So we're going with the players who have stood out, and in doing so, we've intentionally tried to avoid picking current players.

Great Goal

With the advancement of YouTube in recent years, it's a shame that many of the goals that will be featured have not been captured. I know there's that little thing called copyright which exists, but if really wanted to sell the club to the apathetic people of this town, we should really be broadcasting these goals directly into people's house. Bung them all on a dvd and stick them through the letterboxes of every house in town and show the whole world just what we are capable of. Some of the goals featured are great efforts, some are listed due to some significance and some were just jaw dropping moments in which we forgot we were Rochdale and started believing we were Real Madrid.

Great Game

I'm not going to start going over the top and saying that these games changed my life. But how many things have happened to you in life where you can recall bits about something well over twenty years since it happened? Looking back at some of the great games that we're going to feature over the next few weeks, we really have had some fantastic matches over the years, and every single one of these games makes all the bad days worth it. Like most Dale fans, I've been asked many, many times why I bother going up and down the country watching Dale. The answer is in this list of games. It's the fear of that something special happening which does from time to time, and missing it.

Oh Dear

It would not be possible for us to look back at this club and not feature some of the awful things to have happened to us over the years. There's no Ostrich mentality here at RochdaleAFC.com. We remember the bad old days, we remember some of the abysmally awful players to have played for this club over the years and we remember those moments which had you banging your head against the wall. But everyone of those players, games and moments have been every much as part of this club as all the good days have been. You can't tell me that stuff like the 8-0 defeat at Orient that time wasn't a key part of supporting this club. Fair enough, it might well have been one of the worst nights of your Dale life, but it's in there, and it is as much part of our history as say beating Stockport 7-2 was last season?

Only at Rochdale

Giving a title to this section was almost impossible. For this is the section designed to fit in all those little things which have made this club what it is today. They might be those key moments in history which have helped make the club what it is today. They might be the sort of thing which you have down as being "typical Rochdale" - the sort of thing which could only happen to us. It might be significant for both positive and negative reasons. It might just be those little things which have happened at Dale, which has added a little bit of history to the club, but could never every be put down in any history book. The sort of thing that any Dale fan will remember, or any recent Dale fan could never believe actually happened. So basically, we're talking anything else that takes our fancy.

Photo: Action Images

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