Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Mike Worden

21 March 2006

Rochdale 2 Grimsby Town 2

When, with just eight minutes of this game left, Paul Bolland finished off a great move with a curling shot past the Rochdale keeper, Town looked certain to take all three points and claim top spot in the league. But the team's propensity to concede when in front let them down again, and meant that it was the Rochdale fans, grateful for a point, who walked out into the cold Lancashire air singing at the end.

In days gone by, according to rumour, Town managers would occasionally take their teams down to Cleethorpes beach for a training session. Russell Slade could have done worse this week than to follow the approach of his predecessors and take the current squad down Meggies, in preparation for 90 minutes of football on the newest beach in the north-west. The Rochdale ground staff's solution to the waterlogging problems besetting the Spotland pitch was to dump tons of sand on it. There must have been a whole convoy of lorries arriving at Spotland in the last couple of weeks. Sand was everywhere, on the pitch, piled down the sides, and behind the goals. In fact at one point during the game, Steve Mildenhall lost the ball behind a huge pile of the stuff. Is there anything left of Blackpool's golden beaches?

Town kicked off towards the appropriately named Sandy Lane end of the ground. As expected, Jean-Paul Kamudimba replaced Curtis Woodhouse in central midfield; otherwise the team was the same as that that beat Bury on Saturday: Mildenhall; McDermott, Futcher, Whittle, Newey; Cohen, Paul (not Phil) Bolland, JPK, Toner; Reddy and Lump. Mendes, Stick, Croft, Goodfellow and Parkinson reserved.

The Rochdale line-up included Simon Ramsden on the right wing and our favourite subject of tease, Tony Gallimore, at left-back. Unsurprisingly it took only 110 seconds for the first chorus to emerge from the Town fans about Galli's alleged drinking habits.

Surprisingly, given the conditions, the game started quite lively with both sides trying to attack. Rochdale striker Christie was causing a few problems for the Town defence and it was his cross from the right that set up the fiery Cooksey with a good chance. Galli was getting forward just in front of the Town fans and put in a couple of good crosses on his left foot, but when he tried it with his right, well, it doesn't take much to work out what happened. Oh how we miss those Galli moments.

It was a novel experience for all the visiting fans to see Town playing on a pitch as bad as this. Every movement of the players and every kick of the ball from the ground sprayed sand up in the air. It was as if the pitch was waterlogged but instead of water splashing everywhere, it was sand. Jean-Paul had taped his socks to his boots to stop the sand getting in. It was surprising that none of the players needed to stop and empty out their boots during the game. Because of the pitch, the ball was doing odd things and after about 15 minutes Mildenhall misjudged the bounce of the ball as it came to him. Fortunately he managed to deal with it, but later such a bounce would not be so easily contained.

Just after the 20-minute mark, a long ball from the Town left found Reddy, who, in his usual fashion, ran towards goal. Mark Jackson, the Dale right-back, pulled him back inside the box and referee Keith Hill pointed to the spot. Who would be brave enough to take it? Up stepped Toner, and after a delay to let the Dale players have their say he despatched the ball past Gilks into the left corner. Town's penalty jinx had finally been broken.

The penalty seemed to inspire Rochdale. First Christie, who skipped around a number of Town players before bringing out a great save from Mildenhall, and then Gary Jones (theirs, not ours) had chances.

Cooksey and Gary Cohen had a bit of a disagreement following a tackle just in front of the Town fans, which resulted in Cooksey being booed by the away support for the rest of the half. Cohen then had a great run down the right and cut inside, somehow managing to keep control of the ball on the tricky surface. His shot was saved by Gilks.

Futcher was unfortunate to get a booking for a tackle on Christie, which was just clumsy. At this point the linesman was thinking about his half-time cup of tea and failed to spot that a couple of Rochdale attacks were offside. The first wasn't dangerous, but the second one could have been as Christie found himself one on one with Mildenhall. Fortunately 'Our Lord' made a great save.

Rochdale began the second half much stronger than Town, who seemed to have a cunning plan to keep the ball off the floor. Christie and Lambert were both causing problems for Town but the equaliser came from a set piece on 51 minutes. Rochdale were awarded a free kick a long way out, but when it came into the box it bounced awkwardly in front of Mildenhall, hit him in the chest and bounced out to Ramsden, who turned and scored past his former employers.

Mendes replaced Cohen in a straight swap on the right, much to the mumbled concern of the Town following. Ramsden was taken off soon after, which resulted in applause from the Town fans and a reciprocated clap from the former mullet wearer.

After a poor spell, Town started to get back into the game. Reddy started to impose himself again, once too harshly according to Mr Hill, who booked him for pulling his marker.

Town took the lead on 82 minutes through the move of the match. A series of interchanges down the left involving Newey and Toner resulted in the ball coming to Reddy on the edge of the box with his back to goal. With a delightful back-heel Reddy turned his markers and created space for himself in the box. He passed square to Bolland, who curled an excellent shot into the right of the Rochdale goal. The midfielder, who had had a good game, ran straight to the Town fans to celebrate.

With the 90 minutes not yet up, Town started playing for time down the right. At the time this seemed premature, and this proved to be the case.

With seconds remaining of the three minutes of added time, Rochdale were awarded a corner after a great clearance from the Town defence. Reddy was immediately substituted and Rob Jones ran from the dugout to help defend the corner. Whether this move led to confusion or not, the corner came across from Lambert and seemed to go straight into the net. Rochdale celebrated wildly while Town were left rueing letting the home side back into the game again. This time there would be no opportunity to put it right.

One Town fan had managed to park his car literally three yards from the exit gate. On the final whistle he jumped quickly into his car and with black and white flags flying on his roof and 'Up the Mariners' blasting out on his music system, he set off back across the Pennines reminding the dejected faithful that this could still be our season.

Man of the match: Paul (not Phil) Bolland.