It's a cloudy Saturday afternoon. It's a little chilly for late summer and there is rain in the air. I stand on an open terrace, it's pretty busy.
This is The Crown Ground, it has a sponsors name attached to it nowadays, but it keeps changing so we'll keep with The Crown Ground. For the ignorant amongst us, Accrington is a small Lancashire town, which sits within the green hills of Lancashire between Blackburn and burnley. This little club, which according to one theory was originally formed by local lads from Stanley Street in Accrington (hence the name), keeps coming back to life. The original Accrington Stanley ceased to exist in the 60's due to financial difficulties.
A town without a football team just doesn't seem right. So the people of Accrington fought to bring football back to the town, and by the turn of the decade the town had their football club back, with a new ground – The Crown Ground – and new hope. Since then the club battled to get the locals behind it, and chase the dream of restoring their football league status. Now your football historians and other folk will quite correctly point out that this 'Stanley' isn't the proper 'Stanley' – as that died in the 60s - so the club as it stands now isn't that famous club. Others – myself included – would be happy to point out that football clubs belong to their community, and the history of that football club belongs to Accrington's community. So when one club ends, and another is born in it's place, it's correct that the club inherits its predecessors history. This is a debate for another time though.
So it's 2006, and Stanley have made it. The Crown Ground has just hosted a League cup game, and a historic one too with Stanley beating former European Cup winners Nottingham Forest. Today though it's back to the football league they so desperately battled for. It's a Lancashire derby!
Whilst their ground is still very much non-league, there is something quite nice about it. It's derby day and due to it's small size it seems pretty much full. Everywhere you look there are fans, and our terrace was pretty much full. If you try really hard you can almost imagine you're in the San Siro or Nou Camp for a big derby match. You do have to imagine really hard though!
Stanley are a team that can look Rochdale in the face and sincerely feel each others pain. We're both ridiculed to a degree. We're both seen as clubs who never achieve anything, we never harm anyone and Stanley even have their famous Milk Advert – which they appear to be pretty proud of – to help their ridicule. i guess its better to be famous for something harmless and fun than to be ignored totally, and would Accrington Stanley be in the Football League today if it wasn't for that commercial? Exactly (sorry).
So whilst Stanley come into the game having inherited two European cups (conkers rules apply to cup games) my beloved Rochdale come into the game with no points and no goals in the league. We finally did score in our midweek cup tie, but we still lost. Our form is on a par with the shocking August weather.
What can we expect from the game? Well a decent performance, a goal and ideally a point or three. Who says football fans are pushy! What did we get? Well i'd have taken two of the three before hand, and that's exactly what we got. But what seemed acceptable before the game, didn't feel acceptable afterwards.
We got a point with a 1-1 draw, Yes we scored a goal! But the performance wasn't acceptable, even if the result was. Stanley dominated large parts of the game, and again it was down to Matthew Gilks and Nathan Stanton to keep the home side from scoring a pintful (haha) of goals. The story of the game was pretty straight forward. Stanley started well and pressed for a goal, forcing Gilks into a few saves and our defenders to work overtime. Then we had a little spell, in which Chris Dagnall scored our first goal of the season. Following the goal it became a little more even, but towards the end of the first half it was Stanley who were on top.
Second half started and we had a pretty good 5-10 minutes, but then everything ended for us. Stanley took control, did everything but score thanks to more dogged defending from The Dale. Finally they got their goal, via a Gary Roberts penalty, which sent Gilks the wrong way. Following their equaliser they totally dominated. They had a goal disallowed for offside and produced more fine defending and goalkeeping from The Dale.
We did have our moments. Towards the end, the hoof balls started to find their man. Right on 90 minutes Christie, who finally got a hoof ball to land somewhere near him, beat his man, played a square ball towards Moyo Modise, but an excellent block by a Stanley defender put it out for a corner. A flurry of corners followed. The final of which produced a moment of controversy for us Rochdale fans.
When the corner was first put in, there was clear shirt pulling by a Stanley defender. The incompetent referee either didn't see it, or chose to ignore it. Following a half clearance by their defenders we picked the ball up on the flank. A cross was whipped into the box, which saw their defender handle the ball. The referee again either didn't see it or decided it was ball to hand. Play continued and the fans went mad. The full time whistle shortly followed. We'd got off the mark with a point and a goal. Nearly 1000 travelling Dale fans went home with that comfort, but another feeling of disappointment following a display that deserved nothing but defeat.
The penalty moments in injury time gave a sense of being cheated, but lets be honest here, had we won it'd been daylight robbery. The lack of a penalty decision – which wasn't as clear cut as some might like you to think – shouldn't mask a poor performance, where moments of great defending and goalkeeping stopped Stanley picking up the 3 points they deserved from the game.
Onto that non-penalty decision at the end. For me the handball moment should never have happened, the shirt pulling incident just before should have led to a spot kick. It was clear to everyone in the away end and should have been clear to the referee. As i mentioned before, the referee was poor. I'm not going to accuse him of being a homer referee (given some kind 50/50 decisions given towards the home side), i just think he's a very poor referee.
So the handball incident. Ball to hand, or, hand to ball? For me it was a penalty, simply because the defenders arm wasn't in a natural position. Nor was the cross hit particularly hard. I could see how a referee - in injury time - might want to shy away from awarding it. That doesn't make the decision right, but there was enough doubt in it for him to just let it go. Taking the easy decision.
The top and bottom of it is a poor decision at the death denied us a good chance to take all three points. But the vast majority of the previous 90 minutes should have denied us the chance of that penalty call being anything but a consolation. Accrington Stanley were so much better than us on the day.
Christie has taken over from Gilks as the easy target for blame. As bad as he's playing, there are several others in the team worse and a striker is only as good as the service he gets, and right now Christie is getting nothing of quality from a struggling midfield.
The other question is how on earth does Parkin keep his job? It's speculated that we simply can't afford to sack him as we're potless, and getting rid would not only mean paying his wages for the rest of the season, but the wages of any replacement. This is something we simply cannot afford. But with no sign of things improving, and a recent record that will easily see us relegated. Do we have to sack him, even if we cannot afford too, for the long term benefit? Surely there are ambitions young managers out there who'd work for small lower wage, just to be given a chance at Football League level. "I know i'd rather take a chance on a promising and ambitious manager than keep Parkin in charge right now". I supported Parkin, but his time has now come. Thanks for the good days, and there were some great moments! But this isn't going to get better any time soon.