Match Report - Dagenham 1 Rochdale 1
Sunday, 13th Apr 2008 23:22

Dale travelled down South for the last time in the normal league calendar, this time to Dagenham and they came back with a point. Chaff's late match report online now.

I'm on report duty again this week given that the other
contributors to this site were taking full advantage of not having to drive down
and given that all I was drinking was Red Bull, I can probably remember more
than the three of them put together! [Insert pokey out tongue smiley thing here]

Not sure my Mum appreciated me going down to Dagenham when
I should have been spending time with her on her Birthday but she knows the
rules, football comes first, she comes shortly after football, music, cricket,
darts and fried egg butties!

Our day started off ok, about an hour and a half hour
after finishing work I was out the door on my way with Papa Chaff to pick the
minibus up with a couple of other travellers. We picked everyone up at 9
apart from Brierls who, being the mong that he is, was 15 minutes late putting
us behind schedule!

We had a couple of stops along the way including a bit of
breakfast at a diner and took the piss out of some lad in a Fiat that had the
most stupid looking spoiler and bodywork imaginable. I don't think he
appreciated us telling him exactly what he looked like in his chavved up motor!

After what seemed like a lifetime of driving through the
utter hell hole that is London, we got to Dagenham and headed to the ground
after eventually managing to lock the minibus up after about 15 minutes of
trying!

I paid my student price of a tenner before going taking up
my place on the terrace before the rain and hail set in.

The team welcomed back the motorway 3 which meant that
Holness, D'Laryea and Thompson all had to miss out without doing anything wrong.
The team was Lee, Ramsden, Kennedy, McArdle, Stanton, Muirhead, Rundle, Perkins,
Jones, Howe and Higginbotham with Button, Holness, Basham, Dagnall and Le Fondre
on the bench.

The game was horrible to watch early on as the conditions
were awful and at one point I actually thought it might get abandoned because
the rain was just sitting on the top of the surface and the goalmouth near us
was becoming like a massive puddle but thankfully it stopped when we took the
lead and the sun came out!

Dagenham played well early on and dealt with the
conditions better than us and forced Lee into making a couple of decent saves
from Gain. Nurse somehow managed to blast the ball well over the bar from
close range. God knows how he managed to miss the target but I was very
glad he did!

Then with nearly half an hour on the clock, the rain
stopped, the hail stopped, Higgy scored and the sun came out! Albeit only
briefly resulting in "we only score when it's sunny" being sung by the near 500
travelling fans. Tommy Lee booted the ball up field, it bounced over the
Dagenham defence and Higginbotham smashed the volley past Roberts into the back
of the net. A fantastic finish for his second Dale goal.

That had been Dale's only chance up to then and had come
completely against the run of play but we weren't complaining.

Higgy's goal was good but the equaliser just five minutes
or so later was even better!

Uddin found Strevens inside the Dale box and he blasted
the ball past Lee at the near post. Usually you'd say a keeper shouldn't
be beaten at the near post but there was absolutely no stopping this one.

Tommy Lee came and tried to punch a ball he couldn't reach
and the ball fell to Southam who completely messed up his shot from twelve yards
to the relief of the fans and even more so Tommy Lee who's mistake didn't cost
us thankfully.

Half time was spent queuing for food and Jangleberry was
getting rather annoyed at me for continuously asking him how Arbroath and Forfar
were getting on for my bet. Eventually, I got some food thanks to
Dale_Iain and watched the second half begin.

Adam Rundle clashed heads with Shane Huke and was forced
off with Alfie replacing him.

It's been said that Dale are a second half team and that
was again evident as Dale pretty much bossed most of the second half and created
some great chances.

Within ten minutes of the restart, Howe had blasted over
when he should have done much better and forced Tony Roberts into saving a shot.

Two minutes later Gary Jones blasted wide and that was
shortly before Le Fondre had a penalty claim waved away by the referee who was
poor I thought.

A special mention here to Dagenham keeper Tony Roberts who
was getting stick from us and reacted quite brilliantly to it. The
highlights being when he got annoyed at us all shouting him and he replied by
repeating what we were saying. We even had him dancing for us. He
was our bitch, there was no doubt about it! We even chanted "10 pounds, if
you let one in", he signalled with his hands to up our bid, we did with "100
pounds, if you let one in", still not satisfied, he made us up it to a final bid
of "200 pounds, if you let one in" but he rejected that though did do his best
to help when Alfie pressured him on a back pass and he tried to take him on
causing a corner to Dale! We also shouted to him to get former Dale
"defender" Jon Boardman on, he looked at us and shouted "no thanks" while
shaking his head frantically with fright at the prospect of JB being on!

It's safe to say he'll be down as many Dale fans'
favourite opposition player.

Anyway, back to the game.

Tommy Lee was forced into a save from a Benson chance
before Higginbotham had a glorious chance to put Dale ahead. He picked up
the ball on the half way line, ran towards the box in a Paddy McCourt stylee
beating two players before the ball got stuck under his foot and he was rushed
into a shot that he blazed over when he should have hit the target. It
would have been some goal that's for sure!

Chris Dagnall and Chris Basham came on for Muirhead and
Howe on 63 minutes and it was Daggers who nearly put Dale ahead on two
occasions! Firstly a shot of his was tipped wide by Roberts and then he
managed to skin three defenders before getting a shot in but it was a poor
finish and Roberts saved again.

That was it for the notable action really and the game
came to a close at one all which was a fair result really given the conditions
and performances.

I was quite satisfied with a point and left the ground
reasonably pleased despite the results of those around us but our place in the
playoffs looks quite safe and I'm very happy indeed about that.

We got back on our minibus and toured London looking for
some Lilt to go with Brierls' gin while others stocked up on lager. A long
trip home was made to seem even longer with Martin and site contributor Tommo
farting every two minutes. Brierls was under the influence and started
doing asking everybody on the bus the same question about different topics that
can't be divulged on here. It was like the scene from Early Doors with
Joan asking everyone if they liked circuses!

Overall, a decent enough day out really and HOPEFULLY it's
not the last trip to London we make this season!

Chaff's Player Ratings:

Tommy Lee - 6

Simon Ramsden - 7

Tom Kennedy - 6

Nathan Stanton - 7

Rory McArdle - 8

Ben Muirhead - 6

Adam Rundle - 7

David Perkins - 6

Gary Jones - 6

Rene Howe - 6