Rochdale 2-0 Hartlepool Utd

Rochdale 2 (Murray 2, Dagnall 76 (p))
Hartlepool United 0

Dale team: Gilks, Ramsden, McArdle, Crooks, Goodall, Thompson, Perkins, Doolan, Rundle, Dagnall (Brown), Murray

Well it was Hartlepool who wore Brazil shirts today - but it was Rochdale who played like South Americans. Two goals from Murray and Daggers made sure of the three points, and ensured Hartlepool left Spotland second-placed in League Two. Dale are now 9th, but unfortunately unable to clinch a playoff spot this season. We'd rather wait until next anyway - so we can win the league outright(!)

There was a vibrant atmosphere inside the stadium today. Hartlepool brought thousands of fans, and all of them sang pretty much all the way through the match. This rather intimidating spectacle must have inspired the WMG and Sandy ends, and the Dale cheered and chanted just that little bit more today. A refreshing change from last weeks efforts.

A thought today for Alan Ball - the late, great, World Cup winner. The minute of applause and songs of "There's Only One Alan Ball" really showed the emotions which football can evoke in normal people. Football is a community. Without it there'd be loads of unconnected folks spending Saturday's doing nowt. Football brings these people together. RIP Alan Ball.

The minute's applause brought a crescendo of noise and tension to the stadium, as always, and buoyed by this fantastic atmosphere, Glenn Murray scored our first inside two minutes, and temporarily quietened the travelling fans. Chris Dagnall's shot was parried by Dimi Konstantopoulos (no, I didn't look it up) into the path of Murray who calmly waited for the ball to drop before tapping it over the keeper and into the goal. You should have seen Keith Hill. He has this celebration going where he does the rock hand signal (pictured) and jumps up and down like a child. Certainly novel. I would like to see Flickers do it, but he is always too busy laughing.

The goal was the catalyst for what turned out to be a thrilling spectacle. Not long after the opener, Simon Ramsden clumsily challenged humorously-named James Brown and a penalty was awarded, quite rightly too. The away stand was jumping. Richie Barker, one of the top League scorers, got up, but Gilks saved his powerful penalty down to the right hand side. The away stand was now sat down. Gilks has always been a good penalty stopper - in fact he saved two against Swindon earlier this season. But, if rumours are to be believed, he will not be saving anything for Dale soon - he's leaving. Which is unfortunate, because he's a good player.

The next major incident was another saved penalty, this time by Konstantopoulos from Rundle. Joe Thompson played a nice little through-ball for Murray, and the old, grey-haired defender from Hartlepool dutifully bundled him over (how many pens has Murray won now?) Adam Rundle, who barely scored the penalty at Stockport, chose to take it, and Dimi the keeper made a good save down to his left. Like the Gilks penalty but mirrored. Still one-nil Dale.

Some good chances were created in the rest of the first half. Dale's two best were a sitter which Murray missed, and a powerful effort from Dagnall which only just missed. The first was created by Rundle and Dagnall down the left hand side. Daggers was clearly fouled just outside the box, but stumbled on, gave the ball to Murray who missed from 5 yards under little to no pressure. Should have really scored that, but we'll forgive Murray the odd missed chance because usually he's solid. Hartlepool had a few opportunities too, mostly created by James Brown and "Bob" Monkhouse, the celebrity duo. "Ronnie" Barker looked good, but Crooks had him sewn up. Good match today for Crooks.

In the second half, Hill's men sat back a little, but I'm not sure it was intentional - it doesn't seem Hill's "way". On signing his new three-year contract, Hill said that he likes to play attacking football, and they fear nobody. All good stuff, but I seem to remember Alan Buckley saying that too. Hill's success is down to one thing - motivation. He always seems to get the most out of the players, and they look like they are enjoying themselves which is always a good sign. Flitcroft obviously is a big part of this, with his antics (and cross-dressing). Long may the Hill and Flicker revolution reign.

Back to the match, still one-nil, Hartlepool doing most of the work. Richie Humphries forays were a constant threat, as was James Brown. Hartlepool look a good side - big, physical, but they have a bit of skill too. Barker, Monkhouse, Brown, Humphries, etc all seem like good players, and they probably deserve to be promoted. Whether that is as champions or not is something to happen next Saturday (we are playing Peterborough that day, incidentally). Dale were not creating as much in the second period, but Dagnall hit the post and Murray fluffed the follow-up. Something had to break, Hartlepool were leaving few men back.

It was Dale (of course) who forced the game, with a penalty from Dagnall. Simon Ramsden's shot bounced up and Richie Barker made a fantastic reaction save. All very well, but Barker wasn't in net. Straight red, and a penalty. Chris Dagnall made no mistake, seizing the penalty-taking duties from a sheepish Rundle, and slotting it past the outstretched arms of Dodgy Dimi (who actually isn't dodgy at all). Two-nil, Tom Hark, game over. Even some in the Main Stand tried to sing along to our celebration song. It was that kind of occasion.

The other major incident of the second half came not long after the second goal. Andy Monkhouse did an acrobatic jujitsu move on David Perkins (I believe), and Doolan followed up with some kung-fu (by coincidence, we'd just dubbed him "Kung Fu Doolan" moments earlier). Doolan was livid at Monkhouse, and there were some punches thrown, and caught. Monkhouse walked soon after, I believe for the foul, and Doolan did too, once again for the foul. Easily they could have had two reds each. Glenn Murray also got a yellow, just for good measure. This fight/handbags livened up the match, and got the Hartlepool mob noisy again. Once again, the normally silent Main Stand did a chant of "Doolan, Doolan" twice through. You know you've made it when 40 or 50 pensioners (plus one or two groups of students) sing your name.

After this fracas, not much happened. Gary Brown on for Dagnall and Dale sat back (with a 4-4-1 formation). I don't even know what formation nine-man Hartlepool had (3-3-2? 3-4-1? 4-4-0?). Whatever it was, it is irrelevant. Keith Hill and David Flitcroft started their three year tenure with a win against the league leaders. How much of a good omen is that?

A while after the final whistle, the players returned to applaud the home fans, and KH and DF made typically eloquent speeches. "And most of all, enjoy the night!!" said Flicker. It won't be the night we will enjoying, Dave, it will be the next three years.

Rochdale 5-0 Macclesfield Town

Rochdale 5 (Dagnall 20, 41, 45, Murray 47, 59)
Macclesfield Town 0

Dale team: Gilks, Ramsden, McArdle, Crooks, Goodall, Thompson (Brown), Perkins, Doolan, Rundle (Poole), Dagnall (Dodds), Murray

First of all, apologies for not having a review of the last Dale match (2-1 away victory against Mansfield) - I couldn't get there, and apparently nobody wanted to do a guest report! But it was a rubbish game anyway apparently, and the most important thing was the scoreline.

So onto today's game. Another one of Keith Hill's trademarked routs, which have become commonplace these days. If you look at the stats, you'll see how remarkable our scoring record is of recent. Since Hill took charge we've scored 44 goals in total, including two 5-0's, two 4-0's and a 7-2. Those 44 goals were scored in 22 games, which gives us an average of two goals per game. MK Franchise, the current goal-leaders, score an average of 1.6 goals per game, so it just shows you that we're the best by far in terms of hitting the net.

Anyway, about today. Dale were excellent once more (I'm always saying that these days). If we carry on like this next season, we'll be in real danger of winning something, and I'm not too sure the Dale faithful could handle that (we'll do our best though). Macclesfield today looked poor, and I'm sure Paul Ince will be bitterly disappointed that his team capitulated so early in the match. Ince was a great player, who had a great work-ethic, and I'm positive that one day Ince will become a decent manager. But he's got to keep Macclesfield away from relegation, or I'm afraid he would be for the chop. If they do transpire to go down, I really hope the Macc board keep Ince on, as he's a talent for sure.

But enough about Macclesfield Town. Today was another one all about us. The tone was set in the first 10 or so minutes when Rundle found himself on the ball on the edge of the six-yarder. He calmly took the ball down, fired it at keeper Lee before Chris Dagnall spooned it wide - into the path of Glenn "He's mint" Murray who completely missed the ball and was made to look an right idiot in front of the Sandy Lane terrace. "Oooh" followed by "aww no, how'd he miss?" followed by "keep going Dale" with an accompaniment of sympathy clapping. Disappointing obviously, but enough to suggest we weren't going to struggle for chances today.

The first goal came on twenty minutes. The ball was pinged into the Macclesfield box, and what resulted was a handball by David Morley, and a penalty for Dale. With Gary Jones still injured, it was upto to Chris Dagnall to score, which he did - but only just. For where I was sitting, the penalty hit the bottom of the post and kindly bounced up to Dagnall to slot home with an open net. But BBC disagrees - they say the keeper saved it. There was a bit of debate out this actually; if it did hit the post and not the keeper then the goal should not have been allowed, surely? You can't kick the ball again till someone else touches it, otherwise you could just dribble up to the goal. I guess this is one for ITV1's The Championship to clear up (a programme which we are getting considerable air time on). Whatever the method, the goal stood. 1-0 Dale.

After forty minutes, we got a second, again through Dagnall. Glenn Murray placed a lovely little through-ball for Daggers to run onto, and Dale's top scorer clipped the ball over onrushing keeper Lee and it nestled in the Sandy Lane net. Two nil Dale - cue Tom Hark again!

"The whole things daft, I don't know why
You have to laugh or else you cry
You have to live or else you die
You have to laugh of else you cry"

A while ago I would have said these lyrics were appropriate, but now I think "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves is more apt.

Dagnall's brace started a conversation up in the Main Stand. "Who scored the last hat-trick for Dale? Was it Gareth Griffiths??" It was a depressing though, our previous hat-trick scorer an aged defender who now plays for Northwich Victoria. I still don't know if it was Griffiths, I can't be bothered to look. But with our subtle and topical conversation, the Football Gods smiled down us, and Dagnall became our most-recent hat-trick scorer with another slotted goal after he intercepted some dodgy defensive backpassing. Note to all Dale fans - if you're going to try to tempt fate, do it sneakily.

It seemed a bit muted throughout Spotland today. The promised masses of Silkmen never arrived, and both the WMG and Sandy Lane ends were not up to usual standards of noise. The Barcelona vs Ireland match staged at half time barely raised a titter (Ireland won four nil, I believe). I put it down to Life of Riley Syndrome. We've never had it so good, literally, and we've forgotten how to sing and shout and clap. I expect a return to equilibrium against Hartlepool next Saturday (in the new stripes!).

Our fourth goal of another vintage performance from Dale came right after half-time. Dagnall's shot was saved by dodgy keeper Lee into Murray's path, who belted the ball into the roof of the net. You could easily right a formula for Dale's performances recently. Flowing football + dangerous balls into box + lethal strikers = wahey + Tom Hark + rhythmic clapping. Repeat formula until promotion. If only it were this simple.

Rochdale were playing some lovely stuff today. Doolan had a stormer today, as did Rundle. Perkins was his usual self, as usual. And then of course Joe Thompson. Joe is a YTS lad, who's only played a handful of games in the first-team, but did enough to warrant the "League Two trainee of the year" award earlier this year. I'm still undecided about Thompson. On the plus side, he is still very young (just 18), he's quite skilful, and can deliver some great corners and free-kicks. On the minus side, he looks weak sometimes, lacks confidence, and has a tendency to be out of position. But if all those things can be worked on, Thompson could go far. And who better to help him than Keith Hill, the ex-Youth Team manager? It's just a case of working hard, taking chances and not getting disillusioned for Joe. He nearly scored today too - a glanced header which went wide of the right hand post. It was going at some speed though, so I'll let him off.

Back to the match, and a fifth goal was all to predictable as Mr. Murray danced through a couple of Macc defenders before popping an impressive shot into the bottom right of the WMG goal. Paul Ince was looking confused and irate. Macclesfield did improve when they took off Bob Marley from midfield and brought bury reject Matthew Tipton and Alan "my first name doesn't fit my second" Navarro on, but it was all too little too late, as Mark Lawrenson would say.

After that, the match fizzled out. Neither side had many chances after that - Town probably having the closest when sub Isaiah Rankin had one excellently saved from Gilks near to the final whistle. Dagnall was substituted for Louis Dodds, to a well earned ovation, Rundle (who was having a quiet second half) was taken off in place of Poole, and Thompson was replaced by Brown. The ground was eerily quiet for a while too, with everybody seemingly waiting for a tackle or a dribble so that they could release the tension which builds up during a match.

Credit to Hill and Flitcroft today. They fielded a strong team, and clearly were up for it, when so many managers wouldn't be too bothered when the result didn't matter too much. Ince on the other hand, clearly still has something to learn, but at least he is dedicated to playing decent football (Macc were no Boston).

A look to next week then - Hartlepool at home, an all-ticket match. If we can play like that again, we should have no trouble with the league leaders. A definite five to six thousand fans. A chance for Jeff Stelling's favourite team to win the Title! And Dale in the new kit! I can't wait meself!

Rochdale 0-2 Barnet

Rochdale 0
Barnet 2 (Cogan 24, Sinclair 33)

Dale team: Gilks, Ramsden, McArdle, Jackson, Goodall, Muirhead (Reet), Perkins, Doolan, Rundle (Poole), Murray, Dodds (Dagnall)

Before today's match, Rochdale had the slightest sniff of a chance of a playoff place this season. After it, we had none. Today we were beaten by a superbly organised and committed Barnet side, beaten early and beaten well.

Dale started off with only two changes from the previous match, Jackson in for the injured Crooks and Dodds in for the un-injured Dagnall. It didn't really matter who played today - we would have lost regardless. Barnet were simply magnificent (as far as League Two is concerned). They had pace (notably Puncheon, Birchall), midfield organisation (notably Bailey) and a solid defence (notably Yakubu). In comparison, we looked lethargic, uninspired and we were always second to the ball. In truth, we were probably a bit tired after all these matches in a comparatively short time, but still, credit to the Bees for a great performance.

The first goal came after 24 minutes. Up until that point, both Dale and Barnet had done not much really, and the match had a sort of "friendly" vibe about it. But soon enough, Barnet scored, and after that they dominated us. Their first was scored by Barry Cogan, who slotted in from Birchall's cross. The chance resulted from a halfway line freekick, which was misjudged by Mark Jackson (who was awful today), and allowed Birchall to nip down the left flank and slide it in for Cogan to put the Bees one up. Cue silence from the Dale fans. I couldn't remember last when we went down 1-0 at home - and after a bit of research, it turns out it was on January 13th, against Bristol Rovers (Rickie Lambert, remember?). That feels a long time ago now.

After the opener, Barnet just ripped us apart. With the notable exception of Perkins, all our players were mislaying passes, and getting skinned by the opposition attack (especially Jason Puncheon on left wing). It wasn't long before Barnet got a second, a fantastic goal which had me and many other home fans applauding in appreciation (an unusual thing indeed!). The move started off in Dale's defence, as McArdle and co. played about with it - and inevitably gave away possession cheaply to Cogan, who swung an exquisite cross in for Dean Sinclair to head in, diving at full stretch. Great play Barnet. 2-0 down, the match was pretty much finished.

Barnet nearly got a third inside 45, as Mark Jackson let the ball slip underneath his foot, into the oncoming path of a Barnet player. He really should have scored, but fortunately for us, our embarrassment was not worsened.

At half-time, I thought that Keith Hill would really shake his players up, change his formation and maybe we could nick a draw, given "the rub of the green". But we came out in the second half almost as bad as before. The ineffective (once again) Muirhead was replaced by Danny Reet (without his banana feet), and the equally ineffective Dodds was replaced with Dagnall. 3-5-2? No. 4-3-3? No. We decided to go 3-4-3, a strange, uneven tactic which was last used around 1900. For the first time in his tenure as Dale manager, Keith Hill looked lost. Needless to say, the formation didn't work.

Man of the match for me today was the referee. I counted his wrong decisions - two, during the whole match. One was for a routine aerial challenge, given to the wrong side, and one was for booking Goodall, when really he should have got red (more on that later). It's not often people praise the officials, but Mr. M Haywood of West Yorkshire stand up and be counted, you were a real credit to your profession. He let the game flow, used advantage liberally and didn't fall for any theatrics. And all three disallowed goals that we "scored" were rightly disallowed. I can think of so many refs who would cave-in to home pressure, but Mr. Haywood did not.

The first of our disallowed goals came as Alan Goodall slid in dangerously, and with two feet on keeper Harrison, forcing him to drop the ball. Illogically, some Dale fans protested that the ball was fumbled, and there to be won. Maybe it was, but Goodall was nowhere near the ball, and instead found Harrison's ribs with his boots. Anyway, Murray (I think) tapped the ball in soon after, with the keeper stricken on the floor. The referee ruled it was a free kick for a foul by Goodall (correct), but only gave a yellow card (incorrect, in my opinion). 1-0 to Haywood.

The second disallowed came when a cross was converted in by Glenn Murray again, if memory serves. Only Murray had pushed (clearly) the opposing defender, meaning the referee ruled for a free kick for a foul against your man Murray. 2-0 Haywood.

The third of the disalloweds came as Danny Reet missed a sitter, hitting the ball past the keeper but hitting the post too. The ball rebounded, and hit Murray on the hand and went in. Referee rules for a free kick for a foul against Murray. 3-0 Haywood!

Indeed, Murray had a whole hattrick disallowed today.

The rest of the second half was made up of Barnet missing easy chances and Dale failing to create many. The substitutions did not play well today - Reet looks two stone overweight and Dagnall didn't quite have control of the ball.

Final thoughts? Dale looked tired and disinterested, while Barnet were dynamic and incisive (at least in the first half). But if Dale only play like this once in fifteen games, I think we can look forward to a successful season in our centenary.

bury 0-1 Rochdale

bury 0
Rochdale 1 (Murray 74)

Dale team: Gilks, Ramsden, McArdle, Crooks (Jackson), Goodall, Muirhead (Reet), Perkins, Doolan, Rundle, Dagnall (Poole), Murray.

There's nothing quite like beating your biggest rivals on their own turf is there? "Forget Rangers v Celtic, forget United vs City - this is the big one!", the tannoy man shouted, pre-match. While I understand his enthusiasm, surely no millions of people were waiting on the outcome of this match, no young, eager, Chinese lads were wearing fake Dale shirts off markets, and no ex-footballers were willing to proclaim this a "must-win match" on BBC's Football Focus. But nevertheless, it means a lot to us.

It's really hard to write an adequate report to derby games, with all the fat men, police and smoke-filled air obstructing your view. On matches like these, the football gets lost somewhere in the occasion, and becomes just a backdrop to loads of drunken noise. Half time discussions about tactics are replaced with relieved silence, before more shouting. I'm not saying I don't like all this kind of thing, it's just a shame that the biggest crowds pay least attention to the football itself. Further more, the bury (with a small b) lot give away fans the worst view in the ground, so Dale's goalscorer actually was anonymous to many of the away support, including myself for a while.

It couldn't have mattered less though.

The match itself was dire. A poor advert for fourth tier football. Hoofball followed by more hoofball, with a few bits of hoofball in between. I figured out this was Chris "the friendly ghost" Casper's tactic - break up the play and get rid, basically. And it worked, at least for a while. The major incidents in the first half were some bury guy hitting the bar from a header (he looked two inches tall from my perspective), and three assorted fans being "escorted" from Gigg Lane. That was it. Dale were clearly trying to play it down the wings, but Ben Muirhead and Adam Rundle both suddenly forgot how to cross, and most of our play ended up as goal kicks. The half-time whistle went. An advert for the Samaritans flashed up on the scoreboard. 0-0.

Half time pies and sausage rolls were consumed (verdict: "'orrible") before the second forty-five got underway. 2,500 Dale fans were clearly out-singing bury fans (all three of 'em) in the first half, but up until we scored in the second-half, it all went a bit quiet throughout the stadium. Gigg Lane is a small-ish ground, with a clear and odd formation of slopes and undulations in the pitch itself. It might be why all derby games at bury are so shockingly awful.

General John Doolan had a magnificent match today, picking out passes, breaking up opposition attacks and basically doing nothing wrong. I've never been so impressed by the Doolanator as I was today, and he didn't even do anything of real note, just did everything right. The 4-4-2, even with the man-of-the-match Doolan controlling it, was not working. The disappointing Muirhead was replaced by Danny Reet (complete with banana feet) on 70 minutes, but all this did was concentrate the hoofballs down the centre of the pitch instead of the centre and the wings. Nothing much happening...

Until four minutes later, a lot of stuff going on in the far penalty area (I'll have to see the highlights to know what exactly) meant that Glenn Murray had scored a goal. It looked a bit like Reet or even Dagnall had scored it, but it mattered not. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!!!!! Dale one-nil up, sixteen minutes to go, bury fans heading for the exits, some with uniformed friends, some not. This was followed by sixteen (plus five) minutes of pure dross masquerading as football.

With five minutes to go, a scuffle occurred just inside the bury half. "Off off off", went the chants, as is standard for anything that looks like a raised hand. Then a headbutt (I think!) followed by some pushing, followed by some more chants, followed by some waiting - finally ending in a straight red card for bury player Darren Kempson. Or was it two yellow cards? One for ITV to show us tomorrow (The Championship, 10:55, ITV1). Apparently, there were also some elbows, a push and a punch thrown somewhere along the line. Whether this is kosher, or just some over-eager message board visitor's fantasy we'll have to wait and see. But two more yellow cards were shown before it settled down and Rochdale emerged victorious.

We now lie 12th in League Two, with 5 matches remaining. We are five points away from the final play-off place. Whilst technically possible, it would be unlikely that we would be featuring in a top 7 spot come the end of the season, given that there five teams we'd have to overtake to get us there. But it shows you how far we've come. Relegation worries eased by promotion chance. And how far bury have dropped - mid-table obscurity replaced with bottom-of-table obscurity.

Onwards and upwards!

Rochdale 0-0 Swindon Town

Rochdale 0
Swindon Town 0

Dale team: Gilks, Ramsden, Stanton, McArdle, Goodall, Muirhead, Perkins, Crooks, Rundle, Dodds, Dagnall

Walking down past the Main Stand last night, at around 20 minutes before kick-off, I caught a glimpse of Lee Crooks and Mark Jackson sprinting from their cars towards the players entrance. Surely they can't have just got here?

But they had. Crashes and mishaps on the motorway had caused quite a few of the Dale team to arrive only just in time for the match. Hardly the best preparation for a match against one of the best teams in this league, Swindon, who currently occupy third place in League Two. Compound that with the fact that two of our in-form players (Murray and Doolan) were injured pre-match, and unable to play, meant that veteran midfielder and assistant manager Dave Flitcroft was given a place on the bench. That's some unfortunate turn of events that when your assistant manager, who's last outing was for non-league Hyde Utd, gets a substitute spot.

But it didn't show at all, which is credit to the lads who almost turned up late for the match and still put in a good performance against a strong and speedy Swindon side (try saying that after five pints of Guinness).

The tactics employed were what we've become used to with Dale recently, a mixture of balls over the top and wing play. The former didn't really work today, Swindon were tall and basically marked Dodds and Dagnall out of the game. It may have been a different matter with the excellent Murray in there, but he was injured, remember? It looked like Rundle and Muirhead were going to be our main outlets today, as they have been so many times recently. It amazes me how simple this game can sometimes be - give it to the fast guys and they'll run with it. And they did, although Rundle was by far the better of the two. Muirhead's last two performances have been under-par, perhaps due to opposition defenders rather than the guy himself, although he does tend to try and play his way out of trouble when a simple ball to Crooks or Perkins would be the wiser choice.

Swindon were very fast up front. Zaaboub and Roberts looked the pick of their players in the first forty-five minutes, with Ramsden and Goodall respectively having their hands full. They managed them quite well though, especially Roberts, who, even with all his pace, only got past Goodall twice during the whole match. The other day I was thinking of footballers with beards, and all I got was Socrates and Genaro Gattuso - now I can add Roberts and Zaaboub to my list. Ifil in the Swindon defence looked good too, mirroring the performance of Stanton in our back-line.

Gilks had to make precisely one save in the first half - Zaaboub (I think) belted the ball from about 8 yards and Matty pulled of a fine reaction save, parrying the ball for a corner. Matt Gilks has been an ever-present this year - and it's a good job too. Lewis Edge, our on-loan reserve goalie, has been recalled by Blackpool yet again, and we'd have to make do with YTS lad Lloyd Rigby in net if anything ever happened to Gilks, touch wood. I'm not saying Rigby's a bad player, but he has never played in anything other than reserve and youth matches, so to just throw him in at the deep end would be a risk. But you never know, look what happened with Gilks after Neil Edwards got injured - he played well and is now our undisputed number one.

It was freezing cold, I thought, as the fifteen minutes between halves. We'd had one real chance so far, Dagnall (if memory serves) hit the post after a lot of fumbling in the box. Decent performance in my opinion, but still some cretins from the crowd shouted, "crap this, Dale" and "let's get back to playin' football". Jesus, 0-0 down at half-time to a top-three team and still people feel the need to barrack the players. Have these people got selective Tourette's or something? or are they just stupid? I hate the negativity that some of the Dale crowd feel the need to air, positivity and optimism are the corner-stones of Hill's success so far, can't these guys see that?

The second half was very much the same as the first. I thought Swindon looked happy with a point personally, and sat back, allowing Dale to play in their half. It made for a good clean-sheet, but not good entertainment. This attitude surprised me - Swindon could have gone level with Walsall on points, but they didn't really want to. This was echoed by Paul Sturrock's post-match interview on the BBC site.

"Both teams created chances but importantly from our point of view we kept a clean sheet." he said. I'm glad our manager isn't content with nil-nil like Mr. Sturrock is.

The game kind of petered out after around 65 minutes. Dodds was taken off and replaced by Reet, who ran around and did nothing from 25 minutes. Reet has yet to make his mark on Dale yet, but perhaps it is unfair to judge someone on the odd fifteen minutes here and there. Swindon's striker Lucas Jutkiewicz was subbed off in favour of defensive midfielder Michael Timlin, which kind of set the tone for the last part of the game, and Dale's Glenn Poole came on for Muirhead, who was successfully marginalised by Swindon's left-back. Poole, on loan from Grays, was making his debut for us, and didn't look too bad - his best moment was breaking up a promising Swindon attack and playing the ball simply to our midfield.

Adam Rundle, a man on fire at the moment, looked our best prospect for a goal even on the right wing. His low cross beat the away side's defender, but keeper Phil Smith saved well before a striker got there.

Swindon's best chance fell to Mr. Roberts, who freed himself from Goodall finally only to lash the ball over the bar from the edge of the area. If he'd have hit the ball any harder it would have broken the sound barrier. Or something.

Disappointingly, Dave Flitcroft didn't make an appearance from the subs bench either before the final whistle went. Neither did Town's ex-Dale player Blair Sturrock, who would have been applauded by myself and I'm sure others too in he did come on.

Overall, a good point for Dale, once again showing that we can hold our own against the top teams of the bottom division.