Spotland hosted a promotion party tonight, though as expected it wasn't the Rochdale supporters doing the celebrating. Congratulations to Cambridge on their promotion to Division 2, and good luck for next season.

Spotland hosted a promotion party tonight, though as expected it wasn't the Rochdale supporters doing the celebrating. Congratulations to Cambridge on their promotion to Division 2, and good luck for next season. On this showing, they will need it.

 At long, long last we have seen a side promoted at Spotland at the end of the season. Unfortunately it wasn't us as Cambridge pulled a 2 - 0 win out of nowhere to send their team up. How they managed to do so, will remain a mystery to those who were there as they were second best for most of the game.

Barrow opted to carry on where the side left off against Chester, by playing three up front - Morris, Painter and Holt. Young Paul Carden was out injured and was forced to miss out.

Dale started like a house on fire and could easily have been two up within the first ten minutes. Cambridge must have been expecting the ultra defensive Dale who snatched a point down at The Abbey just two weeks ago, however Dale really took the game to the visitors. Andy Morris looked to have taken the lead for Dale but his effort was cleared off the line with the goalkeeper well beat. Minutes later the exact same thing happened again, with the ball miraculously being cleared when it looked a certain goal. Cambridge had not had a sniff in the opening stages and if anything Dale looked the league leaders rather than the U's.

Cambridge began to get back into the match and soon took control, and they were only denied taking the lead themselves by a superb Neil Edwards flying save to tip the ball over the bar. Cambridge had long periods of possession but rarely looked threatening. The Dale defence led solidly as ever by Mono and Hilly looked impregnable, and capable of dealing with anything. There were one or two minor worries but nothing to write home about.

Dale weathered the storm and came back well to dominate the last five minutes. They forced a succession of corners, but few chances resulted from this spell which meant that we went into half time goal less.

The second half saw Dale attacking the Sandy Lane end of the ground, and again were more than a match for the high flying visitors. Dale should have been awarded a penalty when Scott Eustace clearly handled in the box. A cross came over and Robbie Painter header was handled by a Eustace's outstretched fist when it was heading goalwards. It should have been a penalty without a doubt. The ref looked to the linesman before playing on. No justice.

Dale came close again to being awarded another penalty when Michael Holt was felled on the edge of the box. It looked very close, but perhaps Holty tried too hard to end up in the box for the ref to give it. Alas, he gave a free kick which came to nothing.

Not long after, the first nail in the coffin came when Cambridge were awarded a penalty themselves. You couldn't really argue with it. One of our lads came flying in and took their striker Benjamin out completely. From where I was standing, whoever made the rash challenge was lucky to stay on the pitch. Cambridge's record goal scorer John Taylor took the resulting penalty and scraped it past Neil Edwards' left hand side to score the first league penalty against the Prince of Wales.

The Dale players were absolutely stunned. They had given everything and deserved to be level at least. It was to get worse very soon when John Taylor headed home a cross to put the visitors two up. This coupled with news of Halifax's victory over Scunny meant they were automatically promoted. The final whistle brought a pitch invasion from a large number of the travelling support and it was nice to see the Dale fans applauding them and this was appreciated by the celebrating supporters who took time out to applaud back. One day. One day it must be our turn.

You couldn't knock the effort of the players at all today. They gave their all and should feel unlucky with the result. Many other sides would have been heavily turned over by today's performance.

Dale: Edwards, Farrell, Barlow, Hill, Monington, Lydiate, Holt, Painter, Morris, Peake, Bryson. Subs not used Sparrow, Stoker Bayliss
 

Photo: Action Images

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