The draw for the Checkatrade Trophy was made yesterday and, as you’ll already know, we face a trip to League One Rochdale. As the lowest ranked team in the Northern Section of the draw we were always going to face a ‘bigger’ team, but in Rochdale we perhaps have a golden chance to progress even further.
The tie will most likely take place on January 9th at the Crown Oil Arena, or as we know it ‘Spotland’. Now, the date is very crucial for both sides. Our match with Mansfield on January 6th has now been moved, meaning we’ll get a straight eight days off after our trip to Luton. Danny will use those days to recruit, recruit and recruit meaning by the time we face Dale there’s a real chance we could have new faces and therefore competition for places. We have a tough trip to Notts County on Saturday 13th, but this will be our only clash between January 1st and 13th. We’ll hopefully be fresh and ready.
Rochdale might not look on the fixture quite as favourably. They’re in the FA Cup Third Round against Doncaster on January 6th, a tie they’ll doubtless want to win to earn valuable prize money and the potential big draw. They’re not a big club and we’ve seen first hand what a cup run can do. Given that they’re also 19th in the table currently they may not prioritise the Checkatrade Trophy, not when they visit Gillingham, currently 21st, just a few days later.
No, it is almost certain that our cup match will be one they endure rather than embrace, especially as it is their least important game of three in eight days. Their route to the third round of the competition has hardly been scintillating, after a 4-0 hammering of Bury they drew with Stoke’s kids, losing on penalties but later drew with Blackburn, winning on penalties. They didn’t even win their second round tie outright, a draw with Doncaster saw them emerge as winners, once again via a penalty shoot out.
Interestingly it is likely the Imps will come up against two players who are recognisable from the summer rumour mill. Jordan Slew, given a trial but not signed, scored for Dale in the Blackburn draw, his only goal so far this season. He’s played in three of their four EFL Trophy games but failed to start a league game. Jordan Williams is also at Spotland, he’s the former Barrow winger linked with us in the summer. The rumour was a £100k fee ended up seeing him head to the North-West and not the East Midlands, but if that was the case it hasn’t been money well spent. He’s played in all four of the trophy games and started just four league games. He’s also goalless at the moment and highly likely to be pitting his wits against Sean Long at the start of the year.
For many new fans Rochdale won’t be a familiar name, indeed for anybody joining us over the past decade they’ll probably be regarded as a staple of League One. That wasn’t always the case though, Rochdale spent one of the longest ever spells in the basement division and were a regular on the Imps fixture list over the course of my teenage years. We haven’t beaten them since 2008 when Jamie Forrester and Danny Hone gave us a 2-1 win at Sincil Bank, future Imp Rene Howe scored for them. Our last win at Spotland was the same season, Forrester again and Lee Frecklington ensuring we returned home with a victory. The season prior to that they’d been hammered 7-1 at Sincil Bank in a game I shall never forget.
Rather ironically, Rochdale’s last manager was current Accrington boss John Coleman, the same side we’ve just eliminated. Keith Hill is in charge now and he is the man responsible for turning them from lower league strugglers to a viable third-tier side. He joined them in 2006 as they stared relegation to the Conference in the face, they were second from bottom and running out of ideas. His first win was a comfortable 4-0 thrashing of Steve Evans’ Boston United. Oddly, Dany N’Guessan, Drewe Broughton, Francis Green and Anthony Elding all played for Boston that day, whilst Glenn Murray scored for Dale.
From there Hill took them to two consecutive play-off appearances before securing automatic promotion in 2009/10, winning 3-1 at Sincil Bank along the way. He established them in League One before stepping up to manage Barnsley, but returned to Spotland after first Steve Eyre and latterly Coleman saw them relegated to League Two. Hill then achieved a second promotion with Dale, only the third in the entire history, to ensure his legendary status. He’ll be keen not to have a Rochdale relegation on his CV too and that is why this is a 100% winnable game for the Mighty Imps.
Spotland isn’t a bad ground either now, although it has been known to be bleak in the past. Not that an EFL Trophy game will cause capacity worries, but it holds just over 10,000. Spotland was selected as a venue for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, hosting a match between Fiji and Ireland. Unsurprisngly, this was the first time that Rochdale had staged an event in a World Cup in any sport. That game attracted 9,000 although currently Rochdale have around 3,800 average League One attendance, the second lowest in the third tier and also worse than 13 League Two sides.