Right let's get the new ground thing over and done with. I know the Shrews fans have probably had this after every game so far, but (result aside) how has the best away trip of the season turned into the worst? it was shocking. Miles from nowhere, and then not able to park at the ground and then most ridiculous of entry system. A queue for tickets then a walk of three steps to the turnstile, with a bloke in the middle to check tickets that the people at the turnstile and ticket booth are clearly too incapable of doing. Guess Shrewsbury must be able to chuck a wage away like this.

The ground itself was alright I suppose. There was talk before of being able to tick off a new ground. But to be fair, it was the sort of ground that you've been to already a thousand times before and everything about it reminded us just what made the Gay Meadow such a trip to look forward to. All that was missing from this place was Cheerleaders and some knobhead with a microphone on the pitch. Hello 21st century, goodbye soul.

And then there was the game. Now, aside from the 91st and 93rd minutes against MK Dons, you don't need reminding that this hasn't been the most exciting of seasons so far. And after visiting the traditional pre-match that we enjoyed at the Gay Meadow, it was almost difficult to motivate yourself to taxi your way to the Straight Meadow. By 4:50, it proved to be the best decision I have ever made.

This had everything. Controversy, crowd banter, jobsworth stewards, and the tradition four goals that a trip to Shrewsbury brings. I was right when I declared this to be a lucky ground before kick off before realising that they'd moved. And I'd go as far as saying today was better than the recent late win against MK Dons. Dunno what specifically made it better, but the 89th minute sight of home fans taking the piss out of us might well have gone a long way to making this so very, very sweet.

As for the game, well we went into it playing a 4-5-1 line up. Was easy to understand why Keith Hill opted for such a line up, given our patched up side and the fact that Salop had a 100% record at their new ground. They're quite rightly flying at the moment and justifying the well informed thoughts which tipped them for promotion before the season started.

That line up saw a return to the first team for Gary Jones who came in for Dagnall, and Lee Crooks coming in for Guy Branston who we may well have seen the last of.

The first half was pretty much a forgettable affair. Our play was limited with Glenn Murray playing as a lone frontman, yet doing so without the swagger that Grant Holt made his own, making the formation a legitimate way to play.

But that style of play meant that the first half consisted of just a midfield battle. If I was to recall the Dale chances from the first half, then you could blink and miss them. There was lots of nice controlling play which ensured that Shrews were left frustrated time and time again, but in the same way we rarely created anything.

Nice play saw a final ball go astray and former Bury keeper Glyn Garner must have thought he was in for an easy afternoon. Had he forgotten his previous three home matches against Dale?

One chance saw Murray go one on one with Garner, and he managed his way past him, but he left himself with to do much to do and it didn't even really make its way to being called a chance.

But Shrews were hardly chucking everything at us either. They had perhaps two or three efforts at the very most. One came about when the 23 year old referee correctly gave the Shrews a free kick as a Lee Crooks sliding tackle ended up in the hands of Jamie Spencer (who after about 9 games of faultless goalkeeping has finally silenced those critics who believed what the Stockport fans had to say about him).

But they did enough to score. And as seemed to be the case throughout the afternoon, they did so with a bit of controversy attached to it. Former Bury winger Pugh, who got the loudest cheer of the afternoon when the home side remembered to pass to him, pulled off a ridiculous dive to win a free kick.

The kick was taken and after an initial block, the ball was nudged home by Dave Hibbert. It was a move which had they not scored it would have seen the referee give a clear penalty to the home side as Lee Crooks lifted the shirt of former Chester man Drummond. Nothing wrong with the goal at all, but the first questions of the afternoon were being raised about the referee.

And there's the big problem with playing a 4-5-1. When you concede a goal, it pretty much chucks all of your plans out of the window. But fair play to Keith Hill who recognised this, with Le Fondre waiting to come on for about the last five minutes of the first half.

We had to wait for half time before Le Fondre came on, but it was a switch which proved to be the difference between the two sides. Now quite rightly, there's been a lot of doom and gloom about following the news that Chris Dagnall is out for the season, but never before have we had such a top quality replacement waiting in the wings.

Le Fondre's introduction saw a major reshuffle. Crooks was withdrawn as he no doubt felt lonely not being in the treatment room, and TK Max was switched to centre half for probably the first time in his entire career, Perkins reverting to left back, and Dale going for two up front.

Now for the second half. I apologise in advance if the reports from the second half goes on a bit, but I can't remember a half with so much action taking place, and no doubt over the years will become the stuff of legend with people reminiscing about how we came back from 3-0 down to beat Shrewsbury 4-3 with Paddy scoring the winning goal.

But reality was a little different. But it was just as good. Within two minutes of the restart, we were back on level terms. Alfie was the catalyst, as we put the home side on the back foot for perhaps the first time all afternoon. He was the provider rather than the scorer, as he crossed the ball over to an Adam Rundle, who I'd spent half time telling anyone who would put up with my crap opinions that he needed to be taken off. So it was only right that Rundle scored the levelling goal with what was possibly not only his first headed goal, but maybe also his first ever header. I always rated you Adam, despite what those sat/stood around me claimed about me.

With our tails very much up, we went in for the kill. And then we had the most inexplicable thing that you'll see all season. With Alfie on a trademark run, he was clearly felled in the box. It was like his "goal" against Chester. There wasn't even a shadow of a doubt about whether it was a penalty or not. It was more nailed on than Jesus. And looking at the pictures after the game, it was proved that it was a penalty.

But...... the one person in the entire park and ride district who didn't think it was a penalty was the referee. And to the disbelief of everyone in the world, he decided that Alfie had dived and booked him. I thought Alfie and Jonah were going to rip his head off such were their protests. At least they got the chance to say to the referee what we were all thinking. Or shouting.

Would it come back to haunt us? Of course it did, and despite still being the better side, the home side regained the lead. The ball was bobbing about the Dale box and we'd failed to clear our lines. And it landed at the feet of Stewart Drummond who had no issue firing it past Jamie Spencer prompting chants of "You're not singing anymore". We'd been asking for them.

But there was clearly a different mentality about Dale in this game than in previous games. Whether it was genuine aggrievement of the penalty not being awarded or whether we'd just clicked again, but we certainly never gave up the ghost, and we kept pressing away.

A further switch saw Joe Thompson brought on much to the surprise of all of the almost 500 away supporters who were in no doubt as to who the substitute was. But the actual sub Higginbotham struggled to make an impact. Well he did at the start.

Prendergast was brought on too, and it was he who's crossing led to our second equaliser of the afternoon. With ten minutes remaining on the clock, clever play saw him push the ball to the back post to Glenn Murray, with Glyn Garner doing what he does best. Picking the ball out of the back of the net after Dale have scored. No Macc fans ridiculing TV footage this week, as the ball nestled in the goal.

But why settle for a point when three points was on the cards?

And we continued pressing. The home side were clearly under pressure as a meagre point against Dale wasn't to be enough, and they were pushing forward themselves leaving holes at the back, almost inviting us to come on to them. So we did.

And Gary Jones was the man who gave us the lead for the first time with his first goal of 2007. Okay, there was a massive deflection to this shot, but I didn't hear anyone complaining as the first bout of mass stranger hugging of the afternoon. He'd got the ball on the edge of the Shrews penalty box, steadied himself, picked his spot only for a Shrews defender to decide on another spot.

So five minutes to go. Could we hold on to our lead? Well we all thought so. But having been out of the spotlight for a few minutes, the referee again decided it was time to make himself the centre of attention.

A free kick was awarded outside of the Dale box, and when it was taken, we were all delighted to see Spencer do his job and prevent the late equaliser. But the ref ordered a retake after Higginbotham encroached. He clearly did advance on the free kick, but given that he had no touch on it, it's hard to see what impact he had on it. But the ref did what he had to, and gave the home side a 2nd chance. At which point the script was written.

Is there anything more gutting than conceding a last minute equaliser?

Well probably conceding an injury time winner I would reckon.

And weren't we just full of sympathy for those same home fans who tried to "Rushden" us earlier with chants of "Going down with the Wrexham"and had taken great delight in doing the Soccer AM easy chants, completely led by some clown who looked like he was Hopkirk deceased such was the glow from his all in white outfit.

With the home side sniffing a win, Prendergast had other ideas, collecting the ball and running with it. He pushed the ball out to the lurking Higginbotham, who crossed with aplomb I believe the phrase to be, to Le Fondre at the back stick who nodded home with just one second showing on the geet new scoreboard.

Cue Le Fondre with his arms out wide in celebration like a Rochdale messiah, and apeshit celebrations both on and off the pitch with the second spell of stranger hugging with attention then turned towards the home fans who suddenly decided it was a good idea to go and queue early for the park and ride home. Laugh? I nearly joined the queue for tickets for Tuesday.

The subsequent four minutes of injury time weren't without incident, but had they equalised, we'd have only gone and scored a fifth, so why bother?

So as with Stoke and Oxford previously, we proved ourselves to be the new ground party poopers as we became the first side to win away at Shrewsbury's  new ground. A great afternoon to be a Dale fan without any doubt, and the victory was very much one that the second half display deserved.

There was clearly a very valuable lesson learnt today. In the same way that Keith Hill got spooked by the defeat at Posh on the opening day of the season, and then changed things on the back of that, today proved that a Dale side playing the way we play is good enough to beat anybody.

We don't have to worry about systems, or how the opposition will play, or if there's a particular threat. We're Dale, we're very good at attacking, and we'll win more than we'll lose playing this way. It's no wonder we're smiling so much today.

And Simon Coleman never even crossed my mind today. Job done.