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If you enjoyed that you might enjoy this from the same author in regards to Chester fc.
Most of us have cousins and most of us only see them at life’s big three of weddings, christenings and funerals. On these rare occasions conversations are struck and catch-ups caught and you are reminded of your familial connection, a bond that seems so strong when they’re right there standing in front of you yet vanishes the moment they’re gone. This is a guy who has 12.5% of the same DNA as you do. He is only one step removed from being a sibling, There are photographs in unseen albums of you both as toddlers on a beach and at family barbecues as cocky young kids with bad haircuts, arms around one another. He’s a decent sort. You resolve to stay in touch. But you don’t because life gets in the way. There’s a crisis at work and a weekend away with the boys and before you know it you’ve gone your way again and he’s gone his and you’re back to hearing of his big moments second-hand via a parent. He’s become a dad again for the third time. He’s had a health scare. Learning of each development pricks at your conscience and you momentarily kid yourself that you’re going to make the call. You possibly would do — but probably wouldn’t — if you had his number. Chester FC are my footballing cousin. Each time I drive past their ground that resides only five miles from my house and four from the home that I grew up in my conscience is pricked and I resolve to attend a game this season. After all they are only one step removed from being a blood relative; my team being Manchester City and the Seals for so long named Chester City. There’s weighty symbolism in that wordplay. Then there are the photographs, in these instance not physical artefacts but imprinted on the mind, of going to my first live games with my dad in tow, and later standing behind one of the goals with a group of school mates barracking the opposition keeper on floodlit Friday nights. Those evenings were at Sealand Road — before the move to the Deva Stadium a mile or so further from town; before it all went to pot — and they were scheduled for that time so as to distance themselves from Liverpool and Everton fixtures that otherwise dominated local interest. Throughout the course of my lifetime, Chester has always been the poor cousin. In the intervening years I have gone to watch the Blues if all too irregularly. There were no promotion days or relegation disasters to act as neat analogies of weddings, christenings or funerals; it was usually when the mood took me and opportunity presented itself. And on each occasion I would resolve to go again very soon. This was my local club and if I couldn’t commit to supporting them with my heart I should at least support them with my presence. They are 12.5% of my sporting DNA. Only life would get in the way, usually in the form of Manchester City playing on the same day or a televised game that I needed to report on or sometimes just plain, ordinary life. On the last international weekend when Chester played at home I went to IKEA, then the cinema, and then had a meal out because I’d been writing about football for about sixty consecutive days and needed a break from it. Before I knew it my absence at the Deva ran into weeks, then months, then years. Last week I learned second-hand that my footballing cousin was enduring a health scare. I had no idea. I write about football for a living and it had reached this critical juncture right under my nose and I had no idea. This was not a mere pricking of my conscience. The guilt has been like a second layer of skin ever since. “If we can’t raise eighty-five thousand to ninety thousand pounds a month then we could be finished in a couple of months” — that’s how it was termed in a City Fans United meeting last Thursday to members some of whom were appalled at having the gravity of the situation kept from them until so recently. Worse was to follow with the news that fifty thousand pounds had to be found very quickly indeed. To that end a staggering ten thousand has already been raised through donations while last Saturday the club’s new signing Shepherd Murombedzi agreed to play for free. If survival is secured next season’s budget is set to be cut from £450,000 to £250,000 including coaching and support staff costs slashed. A Chester youth game on January 31st is expected to raise further funds with a pay-what-you-want policy on the door. More slender hope resides in the fee for James Alabi’s switch to Tranmere set to go to tribunal and Chester also have the option of selling their sell-on clause installed when talented defender Sam Hughes moved to Leicester. Fresh investment meanwhile is potentially available, a mystery benefactor put forward by commentator and lifelong Chester fan Jonathan Legard. Legard alluded on Twitter last week that the board’s running of the club has been a ‘shambles’. Yesterday the club’s chairman and two members of the board stood down. How much of this equates to papering over the cracks depends on your disposition but what can be stated with certainty is that this current crisis has reignited local concern with 200 new CFU members signing up inside of three days. This is a huge fillip for a club that has seen dwindling attendances of late as their rise through the lower divisions levelled off in the National League. Chester has been here before. They have overcome before. In the summer of 1999 an American named Terry Smith took control of the club and soon after sacked manager Kevin Ratcliffe. Smith, an eccentric individual by anyone’s estimation, then decided to take up the position himself despite having an extremely limited knowledge of the game. He appointed captains for the defence, midfield and attack. His team-talks consisted of the Lord’s Prayer. He believed that it was possible to substitute a sent off player. Unsurprisingly Chester City FC went into inexorable freefall and lost their proud 69 year league status, yet Smith’s most grievous act was still to come when he willingly sold the club to businessman and boxing promoter Stephen Vaughn. Vaughn is presently disqualified from acting as a director of any company following his involvement in an alleged VAT fraud at Widnes Vikings rugby league club. Prior to that he ran Chester into administration, reaching a nadir that saw the players refuse to play because they were receiving no wages and the police refuse to steward games for similar reasons. In November 2007 a minute’s silence was held at the Deva Stadium for a man described as ‘a major benefactor’ to the club. The man in question was second in command to a cocaine empire who had recently been shot in a gangland killing in Speke, Liverpool. In February 2010 Chester City was no more. A year earlier saw the formation of the CFU (Chester Fans United), a group of diehard supporters who took the husk left behind by Smith and Vaughn and forged a new phoenix club named Chester FC. With help from the council and local businesses, one of only a handful of trust controlled clubs across the country was installed in the eighth tier of the football league system and soon after took flight with promotion after promotion taking them to their present plateau. At its heart the ethos behind this fledging institution was simple and inspiring in that every fan had a vote, the board was made up entirely of supporters, and everything that had happened to them previously would never be allowed to happen again. The club was run sensibly with a clear community leaning. A ‘war-chest’ was retained for a rainy day. That it’s come to this then is even more heart-breaking than the circumstances alone. If Smith’s part of Chester City’s downfall can be attributed to sheer lunacy, and Vaughn’s to alleged malfeasance, now it’s due to well-intentioned incompetence as illustrated by the schedule of last week’s meeting that had as its first order of business — ‘Welcome/apologies’. So why is the first half of this sorry tale about me? I don’t matter in this one iota. Well, precisely. If you believe this is a unique situation of a club heading for the wall then you’d be very wrong. Similarly if you think I’m the only one who has looked the other way, bedazzled by the shining lights of the top echelons of English football then you would also be astray. Most of us have cousins. Most of us support a Premier League club. Most of us have a local club that is lightyears away from the Premier League that is struggling under our very nose. I can safely say from very recent experience: don’t take something precious for granted until it’s nearly gone. Make that call.
[Post edited 17 Feb 2018 2:32]
Another 2 page article in saturdays times about us
Another 2 page article in saturdays times about us
GEORGE CAULKIN february 17 2018, 12:01am, the times Rochdale, the working man’s Man City, handed centre stage george caulkin, northern sports correspondent
Backed by a lucky duck and with a new playing surface, they’re ready to shock Tottenham, writes George Caulkin
Laurence Flood is in full flight (not literally, although close enough), when he checks himself and sighs. “I’m supposed to be a grown man,” he says. “I’m supposed to be running a serious business. But this bloody duck has taken over our entire lives. The duck has become an honorary member of the Rochdale Supporters Trust. One day, we’ll have to get back to normality.” That day – categorically – will not come this weekend.
There is a context – only one – where this conversation makes sense. The FA Cup does things to people, but even that does not quite explain why Flood, a 51-year-old surveying and estimating executive from Chessington, routinely bundles eight members of his family into a people carrier plastered with Rochdale stickers, and shivers at matches. Nor does it explain the duck. “We love the club so much,” he says, which helps. Emotion is pulling at his voice.
First, some basics. Tomorrow Rochdale of Sky Bet League One host Tottenham Hotspur in the fifth round of the FA Cup and a vivid occasion is promised. At the Crown Oil Arena (better known as Spotland), average attendance 3,500, there will be a capacity crowd of 10,000. At the beginning of this week, queues stretched from the ticket office. “We’ve got a chance to show the world what the club is all about,” Russ Green, the club’s chief executive, says.
From afar, Rochdale do not seem to be about very much at all. If they are known for anything, it is for the absence of drama; since their entry into the Football League in 1921, they have bobbed between the bottom two divisions and even then, rarely shifted. They have been promoted three times, twice under Keith Hill, who is in his second spell as manager. They have won nothing and never been beyond this stage of the competition.
They have recently become famous for their “beach-swamp” pitch – the words of Jim McNulty, their defender – and described as “a big risk,” by Mauricio Pochettino, the Spurs manager, which irked. “Does Pochettino actually think we want to eat them?” McNulty asks. “He made comments about the safety of his players being paramount, which of course it is. But the safety of our players is paramount as well.”
In any case, Hill’s team are far from cloggers. “It’s taken the shine off the tie,” Green says. “We should be proud of getting to the fifth round, but the only thing people have been talking about is the pitch. The world of football will be thinking, ‘Oh, so that’s why they’re there’, but it’s not. It’s not conducive to our style of football. We get the ball on the deck. We’re a working man’s Manchester City.
“Our style of play is something we’re known for. We get plaudits every week, wherever we go; we might lose, but we play the right way. In the second round we played on a plastic pitch at Slough Town – didn’t moan. When we beat Millwall in the fourth-round replay, the only thing mentioned was our pitch and not in a good way. But it was a massive community effort to get that game on. It felt impossible.”
Community, effort, adoration in the face of difficulty; these are Rochdale’s defining characteristics. They have to be. “We just feel like we belong there,” says Flood. “The club is always up against it, but we love the struggle. Every time we squeeze three points out of that side, it’s like winning the World Cup.”
Flood’s sense of belonging began as a child. “My aunt Pat lives in Rochdale,” he says. “Her and my mum come from a small town in Ireland and we’d visit once a year. It was a mammoth journey in the back of the car, five or six hours, stay overnight at Rochdale, kill two birds with one stone, and then drive on to Liverpool, the ferry to Ireland for the start of the summer holidays. I’d always look forward to Rochdale and I can still remember the pie and chips. I’ve followed the team from a distance since and love the northern banter, being in that part of the world. The club is amazing. They care for people, look out for their own. I apply for tickets and get a thank you note back, handwritten, ‘So good to hear from you, enjoy the day.’ ”
Dale the Rochdale Duck has become the team’s mascot
Flood has indoctrinated his six children. “We went to an away game at Southend [United] and there were only 96 Rochdale supporters there,” he says. “We were the best part of 10 per cent of the crowd. Afterwards, the manager came over and thanked us. We couldn’t believe it.
“Another time last season, a member of the coaching staff started waving at me. He called me over and said, ‘You wouldn’t get me two pies, would you mate?’ I said yes, told him to wait there. ‘No, the gaffer would go mad if I brought pies to the changing-room. Put them on the coach.’ So I got the pies and took them to the bus. The driver shouted, ‘Which fat bastard wanted these two pies’. I’m not sure the plan worked.”
So, the duck. Or, to give him his full title, Dale the Rochdale Duck. “We were in Scotland on holiday and I went to a fair with Callum, my three-year-old son,” Flood says. “There was a stall selling decoys and there was one duck left. From a couple of yards away, you’d think it was real. I bought it for the little man, £10, and left it in what I call our battle-bus.
“I’m always embarrassing my children and when we went to Southend this season, there was a massive traffic jam on the M25, so I got the duck and held it out of the window. People were roaring with laughter.
“We drew that game. For Slough in the second round, this ridiculous creature was still on the back seat, so I thought I’d really embarrass Charlotte, my daughter, put the duck on my shoulder and walked up and down the high street.
“When we got to the ground, we put the duck on the corner flag and won 4-0. We took it to Doncaster Rovers in the third round and it was like a scene from Phoenix Nights. The security guard wouldn’t let us in – ‘You can’t bring the duck in lad, no way’. Then the head of security came down and said, ‘The bloody duck is dead you idiot, let that duck in’.
“Me and Charlotte were the first in the away end and there were all these security men with their earpieces and you could hear this echo from them all talking: ‘I can confirm the duck is not alive’. We played really well and won 1-0. When we got home at 8.30pm that night, the phone was going mad.
“The BBC, Match of the Day, the club, 8,000 followers on Facebook, everybody looking for the duck owners.
“It’s just spiralled. I can’t get out of the ground now without people wanting selfies with the bloody duck. It’s famous. We beat Millwall and keep marching on – the duck has never seen them lose. Never. But he only goes to the cup games, because I don’t want to wear his magic out. We went to Bristol Rovers on Tuesday and people were asking where he was. We’ve had to bring him inside for security. He’s under lock and key.”
Rochdale have relaid their pitch this week, “at a great cost,” Green says, but not to appease Tottenham. “We made the decision to give the manager and the team the best chance of staying up,” Green says. It has meant more effort; as of yesterday, the grass was being tended by an old Yorkshire County Cricket Club roller, the lines and markings still to be painted. In the car park there was a pile of stones and a skip full of old turf.
“This has been the shortest week of my life,” Carl Pass, the managing director of Premier Pitches says. (Manchester City, Chelsea and Newcastle United are among his other clients). “It’s been a huge challenge, on occasion working through the night,” with 10-15 of his staff, two of whom were flown from Poland. “We’ve lived on site, in caravans,” he says. “I haven’t moved since Saturday. It’s been like a military operation.”
More than 1,000 tonnes of old grass and mud has been removed and hauled away, in atrocious conditions. “We’ve had blizzards, frost, ice, torrential rain,” Pass says. “Rochdale is the wettest town in England. And if it isn’t, I haven’t been to wetter. I’ve developed webbed feet.”
Dale the duck would approve. And Rochdale’s teams should benefit from a pristine surface in the games that follow. For McNulty, a self-confessed “journeyman footballer,” there is the impact of relegation to consider. “It’s hard to look at the bigger picture when you’ve a match like this,” he says, “but we have to. Going down would be detrimental to all of us, the fans, the people who work at the club, our pay-packets.At our level, these things are very important.”
Yet Spurs is a focal point, “exciting and daunting,” as McNulty put it. “We’ve had a laugh in the changing room,” he says. “Tottenham have gone from the north London derby at Wembley to Turin to this. Quite a culture shock.”
McNulty, 33, a travelled veteran, is now studying for a degree in journalism. Nine years ago, at Brighton & Hove Albion, McNulty was injured in a match against Crewe Alexandra and had his right kidney removed. “The doctor told me I probably wouldn’t play again,” he says. “Instant tears. I remember crying into my dad’s chest.” It pushes McNulty on. He will enjoy “our day in the sun”, he says.
Theirs might look like a stodgy history, but there is another way of looking at Rochdale. “It’s about friendliness, a team, community,” Green says. “And it’s a very honest club.” Simply existing “gets more difficult every year”, such is the game’s financial inequality, but there is a lot to be said for it. “We’re admired for our stability,” Green says, “for producing players. People ask, ‘How do little Rochdale survive year on year?’ It’s because we run the club properly.”
It can be hard to capture the nature of support, of obsession, of meaning, but Flood is looking forward to “a celebration of Rochdale. The town hasn’t had great publicity over the years but it’s a brilliant place. And although we’ve been struggling this season, the reality is that the manager has worked miracles.”
He suspects that Spurs will be Dale the duck’s final outing. “He’s probably only got one more match in him,” Flood says. “And then he’s for the wok.”
It's also unlikely the term the 'Rochdale Division' would ever have entered the footballing lexicon had Dale lost one of a number of re-election votes they had to endure.
Most notably, just one vote saw them survive the drop in 1980 at the expense of the aforementioned Altrincham. Even in 1978, it was Southport who took the drop at their expense when Wigan Athletic entered the Football League.
Dale spent 36 consecutive seasons in the basement division until promotion last term - nobody has spent a longer continuous spell in it.
They also hold the dubious record of having the lowest average position of all the continuous members of the Football League in the past 90 years. Crucially, though, because of their continued election victories, they are continuous.
more info here
1980 What is now the Football Conference was formed. A single club was put forward for election. Darlington FL 49 re-elected to Division Four Crewe Alexandra FL 48 re-elected to Division Four Hereford United FL 28 re-elected to Division Four Rochdale FL 26 re-elected to Division Four Altrincham FC 25
This was an unfortunated ballot for Altrincham. Altrincham were sure of the votes of Grimsby and Luton but the Grimsby representative 'forgot' to vote and the Luton rep arrived from 'lunch' after the vote had taken place.
[Post edited 17 Feb 2018 1:53]
Like I said, 1980.
When I was your age, I used to enjoy the odd game of tennis. Or was it golf?
It wouldn't surprise me if Adshead played tomorrow. Against Leeds and Forest Hill included a few surpsises, such as a relatively unseen Tanser at centre-back, and a few other youth players.
It wouldn't surprise me if Adshead played tomorrow. Against Leeds and Forest Hill included a few surpsises, such as a relatively unseen Tanser at centre-back, and a few other youth players.
Yes, a major surprise about Big Jim's lost kidney. I do wish medics would stop telling people "you'll never do this... or that... again" when clearly there loads of examples of people doing exactly what they're being told they won't do
Fair enough, for some it might act as a motivator, but for others it could have the opposite effect
On another note, interesting that Jim seems to confirm the players will have their wages reduced if we go down
Yes, a major surprise about Big Jim's lost kidney. I do wish medics would stop telling people "you'll never do this... or that... again" when clearly there loads of examples of people doing exactly what they're being told they won't do
Fair enough, for some it might act as a motivator, but for others it could have the opposite effect
On another note, interesting that Jim seems to confirm the players will have their wages reduced if we go down
As a teenager I had major op 50+ yrs ago - on what turned out to be my only kidney - leaving me with less than 1. I was stopped playing footie, rugby etc - definitely opposite effect for me. Great to hear these days folk are encouraged to not stop.
As a teenager I had major op 50+ yrs ago - on what turned out to be my only kidney - leaving me with less than 1. I was stopped playing footie, rugby etc - definitely opposite effect for me. Great to hear these days folk are encouraged to not stop.
Good to hear you came through that, amazing how the body can cope
Please could someone copy and paste article about Steven Davies in today's Times?
I've registered for free access but can never open them on my mobile.
Many thanks in advance
Steve Davies ran his finger across his forehead as he spoke, tracing a line that ended at a small lump underneath his skin. There he lingered briefly on the point that marked the screw. One of 22 that fix ten metal plates in place, a man-made sheath of protection replacing the layer of skull shattered by an errant elbow back when he dreamt that goals like the one that he plundered against elite Premier League opposition eight days ago would simply be the norm.
It was when Davies, surrounded by family and friends, was watching a rerun at home of his last-gasp equaliser in Rochdale’s absorbing 2-2 FA Cup fifth-round draw with Tottenham Hotspur that the poignancy of what he had just achieved truly stuck. The soundtrack in the build-up to the strike, one that ensured the Sky Bet League One side will travel to Wembley on Wednesday seeking to muster more heroics, had been hollered by an away support at Spotland paying homage to Ryan Mason, their former midfielder.
Mason’s retirement on doctors’ orders after a fractured skull had been a reminder to Davies of the injury that he suffered seven years ago, one that came close to leaving him brain damaged. So to hear the songs dovetail with his own accomplished finish served as a justification for continuing to put his body on the line.
“It just felt surreal,” he said. “They started singing Ryan Mason’s name in those last five minutes and that was when I scored. When I realised how lucky I had been, I didn’t want to give up. If I had given up, I don’t get that feeling against Spurs. If I don’t have that, we don’t now have Wednesday.
“When we were watching the game back we talked about all the shit days, all the times it has been rubbish. The goal was like a thank-you to everyone – my wife, Sacha, my mum and dad and all the others – who have stuck by me. The opportunity to go to Wembley with them all is going to be special.”
Davies has had plenty of “shit days”, as he calls them. Rejection from Liverpool, his boyhood club, aged 15 left such a sour taste that he almost turned his back on the game and then, when they discussed re-signing him after his impact at neighbours Tranmere Rovers, he baulked at the opportunity to plunge back into the youth system.
“I had been at Liverpool since I was eight,” Davies, whose fervour as a fan of the club has never been dampened, said. “Did I really want to carry on? Probably not because I didn’t think I could take another person saying you are not good enough. It was my dad who persuaded me and once I starting doing OK I just wanted to carry on playing first-team football.”
At Prenton Park, he ruptured the cruciate ligaments in his right knee, and would later endure the same injury in his left leg having seen his career step up a gear with Derby County. Each setback sidelined him for eight months.
But it was an incident in the closing stages of a game for Derby against Southampton in October 2011 that had the most serious repercussions. Davies sought to dart away from José Fonte in one duel, but was flattened and thereafter his priority became a battle for his long-term health, let alone his short-term career.
“He didn’t mean to hurt me, but he meant to stop me,” Davies said. “I wasn’t unconscious. I remember lying down with my hands over my head and the physio came on. I sat up and saw a look on his face that I had never seen before. I said: ‘I’m fine’. He just said, ‘Please, lie down’.
“It wasn’t until I was in the ambulance that I could feel I had a big, massive hole in my forehead. It wasn’t so much a headache as a dull pain where I felt like my head was going to completely explode. My eyes felt like they were bulging out of my head.
“The surgeon said they were going to cut me from ear to ear. Sacha arrived and I said, ‘You can’t let them do that to me’. I was worried about the sheer size of the scar and other things like if my hair was going to grow back properly.
“I wasn’t due to have the surgery until the following morning and I remember them telling me I needed to rest. But I was terrified because I was worried if I went to sleep, I wasn’t going to wake up.”
In shunning surgery similar to that performed on Mason after the Hull City player’s clash of heads with Gary Cahill, the Chelsea defender, in January 2017, Davies hardly chose the less squeamish option. Just above his left eyebrow sits a scar that has faded over time but bears testament to the skill of the doctors who peeled back his skin to insert the metal.
“It was supposed to be a three-hour op and it was six to seven before I came back,” he said. “They made the slice above the eyebrow and just pulled everything, the forehead, away. I think it was ten plates and 22 screws. I spoke to the surgeon afterwards and he said it was 2mm away from brain damage and I wouldn’t play again. The top layer of skull had been smashed.”
A second operation was needed, on Davies’s 24th birthday, after Sacha noticed that her husband would sit shaking his head when he was on his own. The initial surgery had blocked his sinuses, resulting in fluid building on his brain, stopping the healing process. Yet it serves as an indication of his character that Davies was back by the following February and that on his first start he scored in a Championship game against Birmingham City. Naturally it was a header.
“I was told originally that I had to wear a mask for the rest of my career but that lasted two games,” the 30-year-old said. “I came on in a game [at Reading] and it was stopping me from breathing properly.
“I remember going out for the warm-up before Birmingham and Nigel Clough [then the Derby manager] said, ‘Put your mask on. If you don’t wear it, you are not playing.’ Somehow I managed to persuade him to let me play without it and the next thing I know the ball is coming in and my instinct was to just head it. It went in. All I was thinking about was scoring.”
In the years since the bone has knitted with the plates, in theory making everything stronger than before. There is no sense of discomfort although the father of two is aware that another blow to the area would mean the risk of more reconstructive surgery
For now, however, that fear is far from his thoughts. His previous trip to Wembley came as a Liverpool fan for the FA Cup semi-final defeat by Aston Villa in 2015, but he returns to the national stadium now in his own right.
Davies collected 26 tickets last week and his children, Arthur, 13, and Gracie, seven, have been given permission to take a day off school to join the throng of loved ones converging on the capital hoping to witness another upset.
Rochdale will train at St George’s Park in the build-up, making use of one of the pitches that is a replica of Wembley, as Keith Hill, the manager, formulates the master plan designed to shock and awe.
Whether Davies starts or features from the bench, he is primed to offer his experience and display the scoring nous evident in a career that has also included spells with Bristol City, Blackpool, Sheffield United and Bradford City. He was irked by the BBC’s description of him as a “journeyman” during commentary of the original tie.
Praise would come from on high as his heroics began to sink in. Davies said: “Once I had scored, and we were back by the centre circle, I was standing next to Harry Kane and he said to me, ‘What a great finish’. That was brilliant of him. He is probably the best finisher in the world and to be on the same pitch with him was an honour. Amazing.
“There have been times when, with all the injuries, me and Sacha have sat up in the evening and I am crying, ‘I can’t do it’. She has kept me going and my mum and dad [Karen and Mark] as well.
“This is now a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Will it ever come round again? Maybe not, so I am just going to love it and make the most of it!"
What a fantastic story, and to think that but for his goal against Spurs we wouldn't have got to hear it. Puts his absence from the pitch at Dale in real perspective; in some ways, equally as poignant as JTs since the injury could've been life-threatening. 2cm away...
Another medic telling someone "they'll never play again" - those words get more disgusting every time i read them
Just had Dale on during h-t at the Swansea/Sheff Wed replay
Missed most of it making a brew - can anyone fill in what was featured?
Showed all 4 goals from last match
Interview with Camps: Got man of match, 16 mates all going down on a coach, can't wait interview with Davies: Landed perfect, just hit it. Taking his kids out of school, dream to play at Wembley Interview with Hill: It's an opportunity, you have to enjoy these moments
Just listened to last nights Radio 5 commentary on the game. VAR dominates, but, to a man, the commentary team were nothing but complimentary to The Dale. They also opined that the Wembley game will live long in peoples memories for many reasons - an "I was there" moment.
Just listened to last nights Radio 5 commentary on the game. VAR dominates, but, to a man, the commentary team were nothing but complimentary to The Dale. They also opined that the Wembley game will live long in peoples memories for many reasons - an "I was there" moment.
I would say the first tie fits that bill more than last night.
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