Rochdale took on Paul Simpson's Carlisle United at Spotland and were beaten 2-0 rather easily. This clinched the title for Simmo's men. Match report online now.
Rochdale signed off from Spotland for this season and they signed off with a truly dismal performance and a 2-0 defeat at the hands of League 2 Champions Carlisle United.
Carlisle went into the game needing a win to win the league (barring Northampton getting a cricket score like result on Saturday that is and Carlisle losing) and in front of well over 2,200 fans, they walked all over an awful Rochdale side to cruise home to a 2-0 win and spark mass celebrations.
Parkin mentioned before the game that a couple of youngsters would be included in the squad and he stuck to his word by giving YTS player Theo Coleman a start on the left wing and Joe Thompson on the bench. Jon Boardman was also given a start for some reason as he partnered Gareth Griffiths at centre back with Mark Jackson filling in at right back for some unknown reason. Scott Warner was on the right wing with John Doolan recalled to the side in the centre of midfield. Dale lined up with Gilks, Jackson, Goodall, Griffiths, Boardman, Warner, Coleman, Doolan, Jones, Lambert and Dagnall. On the bench were Gallimore, Cartwright, Cooksey, Thompson and Sturrock.
Right from the first minute it was clear that the night was going to belong to the Cumbrians. They looked very good and walked all over Rochdale throughout. It wasn't a pleasant experience for Dale fans that's for sure.
Carlisle kept creating chances and Hawley was first to have a sight of goal and it took Gilks turning it round the post to keep the scores level with less than about 10 minutes gone.
The half just dragged on sooooooooooo slowly. It seemed like we'd been playing for about 75 minutes with just 20 minutes gone, I kept checking my watch to see if it was broken!
Jon Boardman was having another brilliant game. If you believe that you'll believe anything, he was absolutely shocking as per usual. He was having a nightmare. Every header was mistimed, every clearance was poor. One such header let in Murray to shoot for the Cumbrians but his effort flew wide.
Dale had one chance in the first half courtesy of Lambert who drove wide of the post with his wrong foot.
They had another chance when Dagnall volleyed wide but you could count the Dale chances on one hand for the whole game. In fact, you could count them when giving a V sign!
With 10 minutes to go until half time, Carlisle took the lead through an ex Dale player. Danny Livesey stooped low to head home a Murphy corner unchallenged. All too easily 1-0 to the Champions which sparked off a large amount of noise from the Wilbutts Lane Stand including that song from the SKY Darts. I was wondering at one point if fellow Carlisle fan and Premier League Arrow Chucker Peter Manley was in the crowd!
Just a couple of minutes later and it was 2-0. More poor defending allowed in Murphy to bang a first time effort past Gilks and into the roof of the net at the back post.
Eventually, after what seemed like an age, the half time whistle blew.
Jon Boardman had been so wonderful that he was subbed off at half time! Blair Sturrock came on for him and took up position on the right wing while Scott Warner moved to right back and Jacko move to centre half. Baffling, again.
Theo Coleman has struggled to get into the game in the first half and looked a bit lost but he did well in the second half and tried to run with the ball and when he did, he looked half decent! A couple of times he made darting runs forward and caused problems but Dale couldn't capitalise.
Ernie Cooksey came on to a huge applause replacing a very poor John Doolan who received the biggest cheer of the night from the home fans for FINALLY going off. I was quite shocked by the reaction from the fans to be honest.
All the action had happened by then and all the fans were just waiting for the end. My mind was already on Series 2 of Lost starting again on Channel 4 despite having already seen it weeks ago!
The final whistle was blown and the celebrations were there for all to see in the away end and I stayed until the end and must offer my congratulations to Paul Simpson and his men for winning the League. It felt like a punishment and all the way through it, I felt absolutely gutted and seeing another set of fans celebrating winning the league was heart breaking. I'm not a bitter man, well not all the time but I just felt like screaming "When is it our turn to celebrate like that?" Wouldn't it be nice, just once, to have something like that to shout about? Christ almighty, it's been long enough now!
Might be a long while off yet, if at all.