hanks to a 3-2 defeat against Boston. A full match report along with player ratings is online now.

Rochdale travelled to Boston for the eighth league game of the season and with Boston languishing near the wrong end of the table, expectations were fairly high.  Unfortunately for the Dale, the referee intervened and made sure the game was a farce from start to finish and Rochdale were defeated 3-2.

Gary Jones was back from suspension and Gareth Griffiths was back in the starting line-up after injury but Rickie Lambert was only fit enough for a place on the bench as Steve Parkin opted for a 4-5-1 formation.  Matt Gilks was in net, Jamie Clarke at right back, Tony Gallimore at let back with Jon Boardman and Gareth Griffiths in defence.  Neil Brisco lined up on the right wing with Alan Goodall on the left.  Scott Warner was in midfield with Ernie Cooksey and Gary Jones.  Grant Holt was up front on his own and even retained the captaincy despite Jones' return to the side.  Danny Woodhall, Rory McArdle, Tommy Jaszczun, Rickie Lambert and Blair Sturrock lined up on the bench.

Rochdale started the game off fairly well and looked to attack early on and Paul Ellender could have seen an early red card.  With not long gone, Nathan Abbey was rushed into a clearance after racing out of his net and his clearance only found Ernie Cooksey who shot goalwards but a deliberate handball from Ellender was only yellow card worthy according to the absolute muppet in charge!

Dale continued to press and they so nearly took the lead with a minute later as a corner landed to Ernie Cooksey who stumbled in the very wet conditions but managed to get the ball under control and shot but his effort hit the near post and went out off Abbey for a corner.

With just less than ten minutes played, Boston took a totally undeserved lead.  A long ball forward was flicked on by Jason Lee and his header was headed by Boardman who didn't get enough power in the header and it fell nicely on the edge of the box for Noel Whelan who volleyed past Gilks to make it 1-0.

With sixteen minutes played Dale were level at 1-1.  Jamie Clarke made an awesome tackle on Julian Joachim before playing a cracking long ball up towards Holt who turned his defender and hit a first time lob over Nathan Abbey for his seventh in eight games.

Rochdale were bossing the game, Boston were looking very poor in midfield and defence but it soon became apparent that the referee was looking to make himself the centre of attention with several awful decisions or lack of decisions as it was at times with Holt receiving a lot of elbows and shoves that went unseen.

The half time break came and Dale were looking favourites to win the game.

The second half was another decent performance from Dale but they were up against an absolute idiot of a referee and he ruined the game and eventually had a huge impact in the result of the game.

Dale took the lead again early on in the second half through Gareth Griffiths.  Jamie Clarke swung a corner in, Abbey went to claim it but somehow dropped it straight to Griffiths who prodded it into the back of the net for his first goal of the season to make it 2-1 to Rochdale.

The game was level again with just under an hour gone when Boston were given a penalty.  A cross came in from the left and Brisco led with his arm and the referee pointed to the spot.  Now then, I've described that after seeing it on a replay but at the time there wasn't a single appeal from a fan or a Boston player and they'd geared up ready for a Gilks restart!  To say we were shocked was an understatement and it turned out to be the turning point of the game.  Noel Whelan stepped up and blasted it down the middle of the goal to make it 2-2.

Ernie Cooksey almost got Dale back into the game but Abbey made up for his earlier cock up with a good save denying the flying forehead with his diving header at the back post.

The referee then completely lost the plot and turned into even more of a joke than he had been!  Noel Whelan and Ernie Cooksey went in for a 50/50 in the Dale box and Whelan took exception to Cooksey's tackle and violently kicked Ernie off his feet.  The referee had a great view of this and the only option was a red card......the referee gave a yellow!!!!!!!!!!!

Soon after that Alan White, a poor Boston defender had not had the best of games when he and Grant Holt got into a challenge which resulted in White ending up on the floor.  White was furious that Holt wasn't penalised and proceeded to blast the ball away in the direction of the referee!!!  Straight red possibly if it was at the referee, certain yellow if not.........surely.............NOPE!  He gave White nothing at all and only a free kick was given!  This then gave the Boston players licence to do what they pleased.  He'd been elbowing and deliberately fouling Holt all game which he should have been booked for anyway so either way he should have walked but no!  Let's just take stock, that's Ellender, Whelan and White who could have been sent off, the latter SHOULD have been WITHOUT DOUBT.

Seventy five minutes were on the clock and Boston scored again.  Guess who scored, Alan White who should never have been on the pitch at that time!  He shot from just inside the box and it took a huge deflection off Clarke which diverted it past Gilks into the bottom corner to send the Boston ASBO's to our right into raptures.

That was it for the game, no coming back from that and Dale lost 3-2 when they had done enough to win the game comfortably but unfortunately, the cheats saw to it that we didn't with help from Andy Penn, a referee who I sincerely hope never refs another Dale game.  How do Boston fans put up with watching that every week? 

Player Ratings:

Matt Gilks 7 No chance with any of the goals and looked steady

JAMIE CLARKE 8 Superb from Clarkey, easily the best performance he's put in this season, made several superb tackles and showed great full backery

Tony Gallimore 7 Another impressive game for Galli.  Some excellent passing and looked solid

Gareth Griffiths 7 Got caught out a couple of times in the first half but was dominant in the air and got our second goal

Jon Boardman 7 Did well overall with just a couple of lapses in concentration

Neil Brisco 7 Played wide right and I thought he did well, was at fault for the penalty but overall did quite well

Alan Goodall 7 Got forward very well on the left wing and caused problems for Boston

Gary Jones 7 Worked hard like usual and did quite well

Scott Warner 7 Good battling performance from Scott who is proving he's a very good member of our squad more and more each week

Ernie Cooksey 7 Decent game for Ernie though a couple of passes did go astray.  Put 100% in though

Grant Holt 8 Scored yet another goal and proved more than a handful for their defence who had to resort to elbowing him to deal with him

Sub:  

Rickie Lambert 7 Showed great control and looked to create

Blair Sturrock 6 Came on and didn't really get into the game

Photo: Action Images

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