 Thursday, 8th Mar 2012 22:24 by Col Five points from safety, games running out, relegation an almost certainty. Not this season, but twenty five years ago this week and Dale found themselves staring into the abyss of relegation at the very first attempt. All of a sudden, we were facing the threat of having a fixture list consisting of the sort of clubs who habitually used to haunt us on FA Cup day and the vote rivalry with Altrincham could well have become our new derby fixture. That extra vote wouldn't save us this time round. There was a feeling of almost inevitability about the whole thing. At the time, Dale were arguably the smallest club in the Football League - something our crowds certainly suggested, and there was certainly a suggestion that we were punching above our weight by even being a Football League side. Indeed, the Burnley Chairman at the time was famously quoted as saying that relegation was brought in for the likes of Rochdale. Those of us who remember those days could hardly argue with him. We'd been crap for years and having floated around the re-election spots for years on end, the opening of the trap door was genuinely there for the Football League to get of deadwood such as ourselves. And there was a very real fear amongst the Dale support that relegation to the then GM Vauxhall Conference could prove to be the death of the club. But then something magical happened when the fat lady was doing her soundcheck, and it ended up being a season that so many supporters look back upon with nostalgia. Of course for large periods of the season, the football was awful and relegation would have been deserved. But manager Eddie Gray had something of a midas touch and got Dale going on the sort of run that was unthinkable. It was the signing of Lyndon Simmonds that proved to be the catalyst, getting Dale fans all dewy eyed about him still to this day. The Leeds loanee didn't look much of a footballer. He stood 5'5 on his tip toes, and he sported a hairstyle which made him look more like an extra from Brookside. Weeks later, I had my first proper Dale hero, and whilst the likes of Dagnall, Murray, O'Grady, Alfie, Lambert etc were all infinitely better footballers, it's little Lyndon who always retains a starting berth in my favourite ever Dale XI. It was a roller coaster climax to the season and one in which we'd been written off every other week. The home defeat to Burnley on Easter Saturday which even got top billing on the Saturday day time weather forecast seemed to be a final nail, but the impossible was achieved with a game to spare after a memorable victory in the last week of the season against Stockport. The run up to that game was surreal. We had the ding dong 3-2 win over Peterboro, the unthinkable 4-2 victory away at promotion chasing Preston when even Ian Johnson scored, the sub aqua home defeat of Swansea and the famous Bank Holiday 5-3 win against Halifax in which the bleach blond Robbie Wakenshaw scored what still remains one of the best goals ever seen by Dale player. Eddie Gray had waved a magic wand and had got the worst team in the Football League winning games we had no right to. And so twenty five years on, its that spirit of Simmonds that is needed as Dale face a comparable struggle to retain their place in the division. The similarities are there for all to see even down to having our first choice keeper ruled out for the rest of the season, and whilst there are fewer games remaining than we had back in '87, such a herculean effort could once against see the 2011-12 season added to the annals of glorious seasons, and modern players retain the legend of Lyndon. Of course, we all know mistakes have been made in the past few months, almost all of which cannot be laid at the door of the current regime, but post-mortems are pointless whilst there still remains a chance. For the remaining eleven games, we must retain a mentality where adversity is shrugged off, and irrespective of what may have gone on before. It's proper cliché time, but each game is a cup final. We'll win some, we'll lose some, but with the right mentality, Eddie Gray's lot showed that it's possible to pick up momentum at a vital time despite suffering the odd set back along the way. We've seen results elsewhere go against us like on Tuesday night, but that's not going to happen every time, and even if it did, it would simply result in other teams getting dragged down into the mire unless we end up with some footballing communist paradise where everyone ended up on the same number of points (we'd have to work on our goal difference in that case). Those we see as rivals now many not be so in half a dozen games time, whilst those we deem now as safe may be the ones we spend ninety minutes checking the latest scores of. What goes in our favour this time round is that we have infinitely more ability in our squad than we did twenty five years ago. Blips aside, we have seen wins picked up in recent weeks, and unlike earlier in the season, we are coming away from matches with a genuine feeling that our performances aren't getting the rewards that they deserve. I'm not being all happy clappy and thinking that we're just a game away from clicking into a Lancastrian Barcelona, but in all but a couple of games under Coleman, we've been deserving of something, and with a seemingly easier run of fixtures on the horizon coupled with a schedule that is somewhat easier than the seven games we've played in the last three weeks. The next few weeks will see whether the Simmonds of 2012 is within our ranks already or if he's still to arrive at the club, but the task facing us has been done before, and it'll be done again, and we've seen many a side in the past written off before seemingly doing the impossible. It's a time for heroes. C'mon Dale! Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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