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young side, jitters, etc. - but time for moaning about that is at the end of the season
so thinking rationally -
- with 3 games to go, we are 2 points behind the leaders and could still win the league - beat Bristol Rovers on Monday, we could be top of the league with 2 to play - 5 points will probably be enough, as Fleetwood still have to play Chesterfield. 6 points will be enough - Fleetwood also have to play Southend - Chesterfield have to play Burton and Fleetwood (and Dagenham away) - Scunthorpe have a tricky away tie at Exeter, and tricky homes against play-off chasing York and Oxford - Scunthorpe let in (yet) another late, late goal today, leaving the championship wide open
3-0, two suspended for next match, 6 players cautioned so hefty fine for club... but it's frustrating when a ref decides to book two from each side after an altercation instead of calming players down and keeping his card in his pocket
I understand they're looking for someone with a glittering career and a cabinet full of trophies at the highest level. Steve Eyre must be expecting the call at any minute.
no, because the moment he denies it, Sky immediately go back to D&R, who say they're sticking by their story, and a whole media frenzy engulfs the club before they have had any time to organise their response professionally. A denial from Grant is the best way to make sure the story is more prominently featured in every Monday morning paper.
There is no lack of defence, but the player will have been instructed - by the club, his advisors and probably his lawyer - to say absolutely nothing while the investigation takes its course. It worked for the entire board of News International.
It also gives the Club time to formulate a response which clearly articulates to the baying media that Rochdale are not a racist club, and it's really important that is handled properly and that they are able take advice from people who are used to handling damage limitation in these circumstances and can pre-empt the media response to it (and not be dragged along by it).
As an aside, I can't help feeling that the cheating, diving, unethical ethos that seems to have seeped into a team Hillcroft always had high in the Fair Play tables, is cultivated at the top: when you instil that negative ethos in players, some will not see or understand where the boundaries are until they do something really stupid. When Hillcroft came across indiscipline they stamped it out quickly (or, like Nathan Stanton, transferred the player) instead of making it a blueprint for how the team behaves.
"an allegation of 'racism' is one of the most potentially damaging things that can be levelled at an individual or a club these days, and 'mud sticks'"
Well that rather depends. As this week's Private Eye points out, Tory MP Conor Burns, who led the 'moral outrage' over Channel 4's NYE quiz, "brought the house down at a right-wing dinner" by telling a 'joke' about how CHOGM didn't stand for Commonwealth... but 'Coons Holidaying on Government Money'.
Conor Burns website proudly notes how he 'topped the polls' to be elected the Culture, Media and Sports Committee and will report, amongst other things, on "racism in football". He will, at least, be well qualified to judge.
Did the MacPherson report not recommend that MPs be investigated by the Police with the same vigour that footballers currently are, for pre-meditated, scripted racist jokes made during a well-paid after-dinner speeches?!
If the player has done it, he's an idiot in the current climate and should be banned - but it wasn't so long ago Chelsea were outraged over the racist referee that never was. Nearly everyone assumed he was innocent; Bobby Grant is assumed guilty. It's an unhelpful stereotype.
The overall point is that Football deals with racism with commendable strength - strength apparently lacking in the law makers (and much of the establishment and media), who can do more than anyone to shape a better future in this regard. If you're a racist celebrity, there's not much work going these days (ask Jim Davidson); if you're a racist MP acres of space is available to ply your wares and be handsomely rewarded for it.
Is anyone really 'gobsmacked' anymore, as was said elsewhere? All the right ideas were floated on this message board last season, the expertise was offered, the Trust stood tall - but in the end 'The Old Boys Club' did nothing evident and continue to promote the club like it's still the 1970s. And drink beer in blazers. It's no wonder some fans have given up: they see a Board full of freeloaders and C-list dignitaries who have no idea of how to operate in a modern world and achieve for themselves a mottling of status by being on the Board of a club. It's tough, to be sure, getting fans through the turnstiles, but they haven't even rattled the dust from the ideas cage.
It reminds me of the last days of Rochdale Hornets: Chris Dunphy, like Ray Taylor, a decent man, heart in the right place, in the end didn't have the strength to modernise the club because the vested interests were so entrenched. And it took bankruptcy to flush them out; a few deaths, and a revolution.
I heard John Lloyd on 5live criticIse Lendl for 'not taking his sunglasses off and supporting his man in victory'.
That's exactly why we haven't produced winners. The job isn't done. He's there to win. There is nothing to celebrate.
It's not a beauty contest. Lendl was a miserable git too. But give me a miserable git who wins any day over the smiley, ineffectual Tim. What really pi$$es me off is watching a semi for 4 hours and the British player losing because of lack of bottle - and then celebrating with the crowd.
I liked his post-match answer to 'how hard do you think it was for your mum and dad watching?' Why should he care? It's tough enough without thinking about how your parents, girlfriend and dogs are feeling. If he did that, he'd lose - in fact he's done that in the past and Lendl has made him focus like a Champion and not as a nearly man - which Lendl was himself for his first four finals.
I wish more sportsmen would treat stupid questions 30 seconds after coming off court with the disdain they deserve.
"one has already been told he will never wear the Dale shirt again ..ever."
Only one? Surely some mistake
I don't really see how this is different to any other football club - how many players get to stick around if they are not "behind the gaffa"? Come to think of it, some of the antics would get someone sacked from a regular job.
The best way for a player to get their own back on a manager they row with, is to get their head down and go out and play a blinder week in week out and prove him wrong. Too many have thrown their toys out of the pram instead.
Like. Hasn't remotely had the chance to prove himself and confident he will do steady job in League 2. Time will tell if he can eventually turn that into promotion.
I'm sure he can't wait to put 'men' overboard and good luck to him...!
Spot on SuddenLad, and if there are players who want Beech in and are undermining the club, can't wait to see them shown the door and they and Beech can find a Sunday League club to all be happily ever after in. Seriously, pi$$ed my sides on this one - ALL the players? Get real... Number one rule of a football club: no player, or group of players, is ever bigger than it
COG came with no reputation, but Hillcroft managed to find the best in players, and always seemed to manage to replace those we sold. In the end you'll always run out of luck on that one, but I think we were under the impression that Hillcroft had overhauled the club into a professional era.
True, they overhauled the playing side, but when they went there was no infrastructure left - they took it all with them. Unfortunately, that's the Board's fault, because they should have been making sure there was a legacy in place. I remember a discussion about marketing during the season and someone wrote on here 'we can't even get the next game advertised on the board outside the ground'. We've proved to be a Conference outfit at Board level, starting with appointing an amateur as manager (whose credentials were accepted at face value), add the marketing, add the selling of players who were contracted until the end of the season in a season we made £454k profit.
This is the most depressing season I can remember, in terms of where we were in the summer and where we've ended up. I expected this season to be hard, but I always thought "Team Rochdale" would fight to the death.
Tonight, all the loan players need to go back and the transfer list prepared. Make no mistake, next season we could easily do a Stockport.
It's a reaction at the beginning of games that's been missing, sadly. Looking like 4 teams from 5 though, so just got to keep hoping we can sneak fifth from bottom
I've heard this term used in respect of American mill towns: for example, they'll refer to growing up in 'small Wasp mill towns' in Oregon, where WASP stands for 'White Anglo-Saxon Protestant'. The WASPs were immigrants of British Protestant origin, but who also had a lot money (and subsequently power) - much of it with roots in the industrial revolution and, I would guess, northern mill towns.
When Oldham escaped relegation from the Premier League in 1992/93, they had 40 points with 3 games to go and Crystal Palace had 47. Palace got only 1 more point and Oldham got 9, ending on 49 and 48 respectively having closed a 7 point gap in a week.
In that season, Sheffield Wednesday finished 7th. Villa and Liverpool (both of whom Oldham beat in those final three games) finished 2nd and 6th.
Just shows that anything can happen (we will beat top sides and lose to the worst) and never to give up hope...
You mail 1000 season ticket holders it costs £500. Half of them don't respond, another £250.
But if you ask everyone for email and mobile numbers (and permission to use them) the year before, you don't waste £750 posting out forms the next year. When 100 still haven't renewed, then you mail them: cost £50.
And during the year you've exploited that database to the full, because you can use it over and over again for negligible cost. And, if they're successful businessmen, I don't understand why that needs pointing out.