2020/21 Prediction League; Game 5 v Rochdale AFC (home)

[Div3North]

Accrington Stanley

v

Rochdale AFC

2020/21 Prediction League; Game 5 v The Rickidoodles (home)

Hands up if you sneaked a peek (or snook a pook) at the League Two table this week, saw Blackpool and Fleetwood in the relegation places, and couldn’t resist a smirk – actually, a big smirk? Or even a Very, Very Big Smirk Indeed ...That’s Joey “NeverTouchedHim” Barton’s Bad Boys, currently (by results) the worst side in League One (being the only team to have lost their last three League fixtures – 2-1 at Rochdale (The Doodles’ only points, you might note), 0-1 at home to the Wombles, and 2-1 at the Posh – so they‘ve also lost to two sides we’ve beaten ............... Just saying ................... Mwwwhahahahaha!

And the Managers have started being chucked off the ramparts into the moat beneath .......... Gerhard Strudel - sorry, Struber - invaded America (someone should!) and took over as Boss of the New York Red Bulls (“gives you wings in my kind of town” – oh no, hang on, that’s Chicago) – which some might think is a better lifestyle choice than living in Barnsley (‘owww much?), and Sabri Lamouchi paid the price of having an unpronounceable name and losing a shed-load of games at the end of last season (managing to miss the playoffs from a position of near-certainty) and the start of this, losing four of four and scoring just the once .... frankly I’d have thought he was a dead man walking in the summer, but you know how patient and caring Football Club Owners are ............ but that did open the door for Chris Hughton, who’s always seemed to me to be one of the Good Guys, to sit in Cloughie’s Chair – though for how long is a horse of a different colour .... and that started me thinking .........

If you take the PrawnSandwich League, the EFL, the Scottish Premiership and the Bananarama, and you look through the list of current and immediate past managers (“immediate past” means the manager most recently fired / departed from any club) you can find some interesting things ............ did you know, for example, that Eddie Howe is the immediate past Boss of Bournemouth and of Burnley? Or that Steve Bruce holds that same honour at Villa and the Owls? Or that Keith Hill was the last office-holder at Rochdale and Bolton? In fact there are a few managers who are “last manager” at two clubs at the same time ............. Starter for Ten, then; currently, how many managers (former or current) are “Previous Manager” at two or more clubs - within the specified six league - simultaneously?

One of Rochdale’s claims to fame, apparently, is that house prices there are £40k cheaper than the Flesh Pots of Manchester ........... that said, they’re probably £10M cheaper than the likes of Ascot, Henley, Virginia Water and Knightsbridge, which makes this Fake Trump News and shows that everything is relative – especially relatives .......... I suppose it also depends on how old the cobbles down your street are, and what time the knocker-up comes round (my new hero, Hereward the Wake Up It’s 4.30) ........According to the Mayor and Burgesses of Rochdale, the town’s other Trivia Claims to Fame

“Fame! I’m gonna live forever,
I’m gonna learn how to fly, high,
I feel it coming together,
People will see me and cry”)

..... include

1. The Rochdale Pioneers, the founding fathers of the world-wide Cooperative movement, who opened the first ever Co-Op shop on Toad Lane in 1844. (Toad Lane! Brilliant!)
2. Construction of Rochdale’s Grade I-listed town hall finished in 1871. The cost of building it was £160,000 (£13.5M at current prices). Adolf Hitler reportedly planned to take it, stone by stone, back to Germany, had they defeated the United Kingdom in World War II (how do they know that?)
3. Olympic silver medallist swimmer Keri-Anne Payne, Man United and England footballer Paul Scholes and actor Steve Coogan all attended Cardinal Langley RC High School, Middleton.
4. Rochdale AFC played 36 consecutive seasons in the football leagues bottom division from 1974 to 2010. (but you knew that)
5. In 1860 Rochdale’s Hamlet Nicholson (what a fantastic name!) created the first compound cricket ball.
6. Captain Matthew Webb used Hollingworth Lake as a training camp before becoming the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875.
7. Sir Bobby Charlton married his wife, Norma Ball, at St Gabriel’s Church in Middleton in 1961. (Well, did you ever .....)
8. The bowling green at Queen’s Park in Heywood is the 2nd largest in Great Britain (might be useful in a Pub Quiz, that ....)

Rochdale A.F.C. was formed in 1907 and is known, with enormous originality of thought, as “The Dale”. After World War I, the League was expanded, and the Dale unsuccessfully applied to join, but in 1921 they were included in the new Third Division North, and played their first League game at home (against Accie) on 27 August 1921, winning 6–3. (The b*stards) . Their first season ended with the club having to reapply for membership, and they finished bottom of the league in other years too, including 1977–78, but were successful in their bid for re-election – which sent Southport, who actually finished one place above Rochdale, into oblivion instead, replaced by Wigan. The Doodles finished bottom yet again in 1979–80, but were again re-elected – by one vote over Altrincham (the closest they ever got to the League).

They’ve never been in the Championnat or Le Ligue de Sandwichs de Crevettes (Prawn Butties!). Their Honours Board (in their dreams) features three promotions (and three relegations), the promotions coming in 1969, 2010 and 2014 and the relegations in 1959, 1974 (when they won two games all season, scored 38 in 46, and finished 22 points from safety on 21 points), and 2012. The 1959 relegation followed the 1958 restructure which saw Div3North and Div3South become the Third and Fourth Divisions; Rochdale secured a spot in the Third Division for its first season, but were GreasyPoled at the end of the season to the Fourth Division.

Famous managers who were ex players (not all at SpottyDogLand Stadium – who else remembers The Woodentops on Watch With Mother?) include Mike Ferguson, Jimmy Greenhoff, Eddie Gray, John Hollins and Alan Buckley; other Marquee Managers cover PC George Dixon (Jack Warner), Harry Catterick, Bob Stokoe (twice), Keith Hill (twice) and Professor Coley ......... Record league win was 8-1 at home to TwistySpires Utd in 1926; record home attendance was v Notts Co in 1949/50 (24,231 – we wish!); and they got £1M when they sold defender Luke Matheson to Wolves this year

They did us 2-1 at theirs last season (our goal from Pritchard, their two from our Nemesis (Mr NotThereAnyMore Ian Henderson, now with SalfordMoneyBags FC), and the return fixture, rather unfortunately, had the same score line (Zanzala with ours on 92), although the good news was that Henderson only scored the once! Despite giving them six points, we ended the season with four points more than them (40 plays 36 – although they had a game in hand on us, which said, we had a GD that was 12 better than theirs) ......... They lost nine players in the summer, of whom four stayed in the League (one to the Bananarama and three – including Aaron Wilbraham and Calvin Andrew – who went to “Unattached”) .... the four who stayed in the EFL were Ian Henderson (see “Salford” above), GK Josh Lillis to the Bluebird BarrowBoys, DM Jordan Williams to Blackpool (see “relegation places” above), and Callum Camps (that’s his name, not his hobby), who joined Fleetwood (see “relegation places” above too) ........... which leaves Scottish RB John Stewart, who joined “Europa Point” – no, not a building in Central London – it’s actually a team from the Gibraltar National League (if that’d been me I’d have called the team “The Barbary Apes” or The Macaques”, or some such) ....

Four games into this season, their League record is W1 (Fleetwood 2-1) D1 (Pompey 0-0) L2 (3-1 at Swindon and 2-0 at Ipswich) .......... no points on the road, then, and only the one goal ...........hmmm! They’re out of the EFL Cup (2-0 at home to the Owls after winning 1-0 at the Galpharm (which is actually the John Smith’s Stadium as of 2012, named in honour of all the couples on dirty weekends who stay at the Hotel, and also known as the Kirklees Stadium); they beat Morecambe in the Troffy, and got a losing GoallessDesmond against the Busby Babes, so they’re still in with a shout ..........

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pm on Saturday 10th October ............ I think I might change my name to Hamlet Nicholson ........... or maybe Ten Woodbines Nicholson ......... just a thought! And did you all read Chimer’s first League Table of the season? There may be a test on that next week ............. And the number of managers who are “most recent failures” at two clubs simultaneously is eighteen; Eddie Howe, Steve Bruce and Keith Hill, plus Paul Heckingbottom (Leeds and Hibs), Brendan Rogers (Liverpool and Celtic), Manuel Pellegrini (Man City and the Hammers), Nigel Adkins (or is that Sadkins?) – Sheff Utd and Hull, Danny Cowley (Lincoln and Huddersfield – I said that was a bad career move!), Simon Grayson (PNE and Blackpool), Paul Hurst (Ipswich and Scunthorpe), Paul Tisdale (Exeter and MK Dons), Paul Cook (Pompey and Wigan), Graham Westlife (Newport and LuckyLuckyStevenage), Owen Coyle, Blackburn and Ross County), Gary Waddock (Wycombe and Aldershot), Pep Clotet (Oxford and Brum), John Sheridan (Fleetwood and TwistySpires United) and Neil Aspin (Harrogate and Portly Vale) ........... so now you know!

Good luck to everyone! ………….. Stay safe and keep well! ………… And thanks for playing!

[Outback Ozzy]

Bit of a bogey team but I think we have enough to do them this season. 3-1 to Stanley please.

[ossy kid]

Stanley 3-0 Dale

[cashman]

2-0 Stanley fer me.

[choirboy]

Stanley 2-1 Rochdale for me please

[monkey hanger]

stanley 0 dale 2.

[andyd]

Stanley 1- 0 Rochdale.

[AccyMad]

2 - 1 to Stanley please (& fingers crossed there's no repeat of the happenings in last seasons game when Sean was injured & Sam got himself in a spot of bother)

[cashman]

i read this morning it was 1960 when we last won at home against Rochdale? somebody please tell me thats wrong?

[MikeA]

Originally Posted by cashman

i read this morning it was 1960 when we last won at home against Rochdale? somebody please tell me thats wrong?

It ain't wrong. See https://www.11v11.com/teams/rochdale...%20%5b1891%5d/ then click on the current Stanley.

[MikeA]

3-1 for me, please.

[Tommy McQueen]

Stanley 1 Rochdale 2 please not

[MikeA]

Originally Posted by MikeA

3-1 for me, please.

That's a Stanley win...

[Stevie R]

Stanley 3 - 0 Rochdale

[LongLostSon]

Stanley to take this one 2 - 1 v Rochdale