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Hi, Just a quick one to see if anyone can help? Keep seeing these two supporter club badges on ebay, one being one with a Christmas tree and one being one with a penguin (I think) they look old and before my time so wondering if anyone could tell me anything about them? Mainly.... 1. If these are real, as in issued by the supporters club in the past? 2. What the hell has a penguin got to do with the club if real Would be grateful of any information, cheers ðŸ‘🻠Link below if anyone wants to see pictures of them.
When inflatables were the craze in the late 80s - Man City with their bananas, Grimsby with inflatable fish etc - Dale, for a reason nobody quite understood, had inflatable penguins on sale.
Amazing it sounds now, this really was a big thing at the time at various grounds.
The ‘christmas’ tree badge was the official badge of the old supporters club in the 1960s, not the official club badge. The supportes club folded in the early 70s, leaving a small group known as the fighting fund who did fund raising and ran the tea bars (Alan, Fred and their missus, sorry I cannot remember their names). A new supporters club was formed in 1975.
Out of interest when did the 1975 supporter club fold, I used to be secretary for the first 3 years, Stephen Birch was chairman (what happened to him?) Eric Rodger and Brian Holt were committee member, I see Eric when I go to games. I think Pete Woodhouse had a spell on the committee as well
I can give you the total background to the penguin badge as at the time I was chairman of the supporters club. People are quite right when they refer to the inflatables. Following the bannana every club seemed to jump on the band wagon. I cant give you the exact year but it was very early nineties. In my previous occupation I became involved with problematical youths in Wardle some of whom were indeed Rochdale fans. So I set them the task of coming up with an idea for "our" inflatable. A few ideas were forthcoming one of which was the penguin and the idea behind it was because the penguin held the egg on their feet and the lad decided to change this to a football. If you look at the badge the gold thing at the feet is the football. As a committee that was our chosen design. We then took the idea a step further and produced the supporters club badge based on the same design. This badge is rare. In those days as a supporters club we had very limited funds so if memory serves me right only 150 were cast. Hope this helps and I hope you agree that it was a worthwhile venture.
The chosen few also had their own pin badge, I have one somewhere.
You have to accept that 40 years ago football was a totally different animal to today. Most clubs had a group of fighting lads who took a name and in some cases printed calling cards they would leave with their victims.
Everton would say “meet my mate Stanley” before striping your cheek with a Stanley knife.
Eg: City were The Governers, Oldham were Fine Young Casuals. And so on.
The Chosen Few had their own chant, “cho, cho, chosen few” which normally drew an immediate response from a rival Whitworth gang of “ooh, ooh, the Fireball Crew”!
The Chosen Few made Moggy a household name and from memory there were quite a few good local amateur boxers involved, from Hamer boxing club?
I had a feeling Moggy might have been involved. My Dad didn't know him personally but knew of him and says he remembers Moggy used to walk through town with his head in-between the ladder steps when he was on one of his window-cleaning rounds.
In 1983/84 I was working at a bakery on Ramsay Street. One of my colleagues, his name escapes me, but he was an amateur boxer, and he had an idea that some of the, let's say, handier Rochdale fans needed an identity for away games and he came up with the idea of the Chosen Few, as we were usually an outnumbered entity
He drew a template for the badge and showed it me for my approval. He then went on to order between 50 and a hundred badges.
I still have mine, and now and again still see the badge worn at matches.
Just remember, it was a different era in those days, with all football clubs having a "firm".
A few of lads that I do remember having the badge was Fizz, Buck Dalal, Nigel Green amongst others.
The Chosen Few, though small in number always gave a good account of themselves when they came up against much larger numbered opposition firms, and defended other Dale followers from a beating a good few times, as did Moggy and his gang. I still see Moggy as one of the great Dale fans, a true Sandy Lane Leader, with his “give us an Rrrrr” etc.
This is not a defence of the football hooliganism of the time, by the way, but the fact is often firms would defend other followers from being kicked in themselves.
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