102 Years

Rochdale A.F.C. are situated on the edge of Greater Manchester abutting the foothills of the peak district. They play their home games at Spotland Stadium, a long uphill trek out of the centre of town.

Now they have a long uphill task ahead of them to get back into the Football League, after a 1-0 defeat at Stockport County confirmed their relegation to the National League. In truth though that defeat was just the final nail in the coffin that you could spot being built for them all season.

No team can start a league season by conceding twice at home in the opening 20 minutes on the way to losing their first game, then lose their next four on the bounce without scoring and hope to stay up. People often talk about teams being in relegation form and securing just 3 points, all from draws, out of the first 27 available definitely counts as such.

It took Rochdale until 24th September to secure their first victory of the season and even then it was thanks to a penalty, which they coupled with their first clean sheet of the season. This win was the start of a brief bright spell for ‘The Dale’ as they won 2 of their next 3 games to start October off in sparkling form.

It would be another 3 weeks (6 games) before they won again though as half of their league wins all season were secured before mid-November. Shipping 10 goals in 3 games across December didn’t help their hopes of turning things around.

That run of drubbings went a long way to contributing to the 68 goals they have conceded so far this season though. Only Crawley in 22nd and Hartlepool in 23rd and almost certain to fall through the trap door with Rochdale have conceded more, at 69 and 76 goals respectively.

What no other team, in League Two, has done is score fewer goals than The Dale this season. A return of just 41 goals from 44 games is nothing short of despicable and when your defence leaks like a sieve too then you have the perfect recipe for disaster.

So it has proved to be for Rochdale A.F.C. as they end a 102 year stay in the Football League that has never seen them play higher than the third tier. They follow in the footsteps of bitter local rivals Oldham Athletic who fell through the same trap door last season.

That has to be the target for Rochdale next season then; beat Oldham in the local derbies and finish above their rivals in the table. To do that their next steps are clear, plug the holes in their extremely porous defence and work out where the goal is and how to get the ball into it.

Just a few minor issues to be ironed out then and good luck to them in doing so.

I hope Rochdale’s exile in the wilderness of Non-League is shorter than the decade and a half that Wrexham endured, before they brought it to an end this weekend.