Rochdale 1 Northampton Town 0

Coca Cola League Two
Attendance: 5,025

Spotland. When football fans quiz each other about ground names the home of Rochdale invariably springs first to mind but in most other respects the club comes near the bottom. It’s been in the fourth division continually since 1974 (usually in the lower echelons) and, from a personal point of view, it’s practically the only ground in the north I’d not visited – not even when a student in Manchester in the early 80s. Keen to correct this woeful omisson, the spring sun shining and the bunting out for Rochdale’s first promotion party since 1969, I set off to gatecrash.

Dale should’ve secured promotion weeks ago. They started today’s match having got no goals and just one point from the last four matches. They weren’t so much stumbling at the finish line but lying face down in the mud, arms and legs flailing. Requiring only a draw last Saturday they got tonked 5-0 at Torquay and then faced bottom-placed Darlington at home on Tuesday. A home banker, to be sure, you’d have thought. There was a victory and a club changed divisions – but it was Darlo who scored the only goal and were relegated to the Conference because of other results while Dale were ignominiously knocked off top spot for the first time since Dec 1. The Dale fans are used to the agony having missed out on promotion via the play-offs for the last two seasons. So was it to be third time lucky, twice over?

Expecting queues I got to the ground at 2.15pm – spotting the Mark ‘Clem’ Clemitt (right) of the BBC Football League Show outside – and walked straight in. Even at kick-off there was plenty of space given that the capacity is over 10,000. Half of one of the side stands was closed and the other half was about 30% occupied by away fans.

Disappointingly, Spotland isn’t half as singular as its name (which derives from its neighbourhood). In fact, the ground is so plain it could almost be complete new build. Three of the stands are very similar, each with a facia in blue (but not the shade of the team colours) and, equally curiously, no club name emblazoned on them. The only feature which reflects tradition are the tower floodlights (dating back merely to 1992, as it happens) in each corner which reminded me of those halcyon days at Elm Park. The feel of the place is similar to Bootham Crescent.

The Cobblers (as good a name as Spotland, has to be said) got off to a lively start and Davis nearly scored a sensational solo goal after a 50-yard mazey run. Dale took the lead midway through the half when a corner wasn’t cleared and O’Grady woofed in the loose ball. It was end-to-end stuff with lots of chances and some tidy football. Dale nearly settled it in the second half when a header spun up from the bar and then Thompson's half-volley was charged down. At the other end Northampton continued to do their best to spoil the party as the match edged to an edgy conclusion.

The four minutes of injury time seemed to last forever. By this stage we’d all amassed at the front of the stands, some even being allowed to encroach onto the pitch. Such a sensible approach by the stewards. Why spoil the fun – and just postpone the inevitable?

And on we rushed. As I’ve said before in this blog, there is something extraordinarily exciting and privileged about going onto the pitch. It’s like you’re seeing the place from the inside out. We waited for the lads to emerge in the directors box and sung along to “Wonderwall” on the PA. I stood beside a shaven-headed, bare-chested fella wearing a gold chain around his neck. He sported an equally bare-chested lady tattoeed on one pec and a full Rochdale crest on the other and dabbed at his eyes with his replica shirt.

“Dale are going up! Dale are going up! And now are you going to believe us?” Well, OK then.

Programme notes: Great programme especially the fans tales from the Dale invasion of Torquay. An impromptu match between rival fans was likened to the kickabout between the trenches on Christmas Day 1914 which I thought was stretching things just a tad. There was also a great Q&A with the ultimate non-glory hunting fan. Step forward one Jarle Gunstad from Norway who took to supporting Dale when they narrowly missed being voted out of the league in 1978. Daresay he’s disappointed they’ve now gone up. The Norwegian branch of the Rochdale supporters club has 25-30 members, Jarle reports.

Fashion notes: The goalies looked like highlighter pens. Dale’s sported fluorescent orange and Northampton’s a similarly gaudy hue of green.

Optional extras: Well observed story here (from The Guardian) about Rochdale’s season. And below is  a good film of the pitch invasion from the opposite end to where I stood. Start watching from about 2:15.

Shildon 1 Whitley Bay 5

FA Vase quarter-final
Attendance: 1,505

So much for winter breaks in the football season. Mine had gone on too long. The gap between the second round of the FA Cup and the quarter-finals of the Vase is always testing. My wait for a match was nothing, though, compared to Shildon’s wait for a home tie in the Vase. Astonishingly, they have been drawn away on the last 18 occasions, the odds for which are 264,000 to 1.

I arrived early to get a feel for the place by visiting Locomotion, a satellite of the National Railway Museum, along with a couple of scarf and hat clad Whitley Bay fans. (The world’s first steam-powered passenger train set off from Shildon in 1825). The museum wasn’t busy and neither was the town exactly buzzing with cup fever. In fact, it wasn’t buzzing at all. Shildon seemed deserted of people and cars and the only sound was church bells. I wondered if I’d got my days mixed up and it was actually Sunday until I turned the last corner and saw the queue for the turnstiles stretching 50 metres back past Eric’s Fish Bar. (He can have never had it so good. The number of people eating his wares brought to mind the biblical story of loaves and fishes). The kick-off was delayed by 15 mins – not something that I expect happens a lot here.

Stepping inside was like going back in time and set the scene for my most quintessentially northern football experience since Ryton/Halifax. Gluepot of a pitch, leaden skies and run-down ground in a post-industrial town: I was in my element. Not a hint of Handshakegate here. Children were lifted up to watch proceedings from bedroom windows while blokes nursed beer cans as they peered through caged windows of Portacabins also known as the Bill Aisbitt Hospitality Suite. I've seen more welcoming jails.

The dominating main stand is more of a giant roof with (what I assume to be) an original grandstand below. Terraces are separated from seats by a line of breeze blocks and, most incongruously in the middle, a domestic wooden banister painted in gloss black. The pitch is enclosed by rusting metal poles supported by crumbling concrete posts and faced with warped wooden hoardings decorated in a peeling paint and various fungi.

Shildon dominated the first half-hour and deservedly took the lead when a shot was pawed out and the rebound knocked in from close range. Whitley Bay then got a penalty when a Shildon player stamped on one of their attackers and was also sent off. The penalty was converted (see video clip at end of post) and the dismissal proved to be the turning point of the contest. It was also the point at which I realised which team was which. Easy mistake to make: the impressive turn-out of Bay fans was sporting blue and white which matched the colours of Shildon. Further confusing things, the only livery in the stadium was a course of alternate red and white (Shildon’s old colours) bricks above the turnstile – and Bay’s away strip was yellow.

At half-time the fella next to me swigged from his hip flask and a couple of other lads tucked into their sandwiches and cracked open the Thermos. Ah, it was bliss to be back at a real football match. Whitley Bay took the lead after the re-start with a header from a cross and on 74 mins it was game over when another header ricocheted in off a Shildon defender. Soon after a second home player was sent off (and Bay had a man dismissed too). Cue max exodus of Shildon fans with the zeal of Premiership box holders heading for prawn sandwiches – or, in these parts, seconds from Eric’s. The squib was already damp without them wetting if further. I felt very sorry for the players. Here they were playing their first home Vase tie for five years and the locals couldn’t even be arsed to stay until the end and applaud the lads for their six-win cup run and their greatest since 1959 (when they made the quarter-finals of the FA Amateur Cup). Bet Shildon wish they were playing away again.

I felt sorrier still for Shildon when Bay started scoring goals for fun to give to make the final score misleading. We’ve all been there as kids: you’re tired, your shoulders are slumped, the opposition’s running rings round you and, frankly, you just want to get back inside for tea from your Mum. The town of Shildon had won my sympathy from the moment I’d read in the museum about the closure of its rail engineering works in 1984 and the feeling was back again at the end of my visit as the

crowd almost shrunk to the size associated with Northern League matches, the sun at last shyly shone and the final goal was greeted with a ripple of applause more appropriate to a boundary at cricket. Like the month that starts on Monday, Shildon arrived like a lion but left like a lamb. The Railwaymen had reached the end of the line. The one away tie they longed for – at Wembley – was not to be.

Little known fact: Shildon was home to a major fake fur factory. Customers included the British Winter Olympic team of the 1950s, members of the British Antarctic expedition from the same era … and Sir Bruce Forsyth and Danny La Rue.

On the trail: Among the crowd was a group that is following the FA Vase 'From Welfare to Wembley' in aid of the Alzheimers Association. To see some more pics of the match (and others from their trail) and give them a few quid click here.

Leeds United 5 Kettering Town 1 (aet)

FA Cup second round replay
Attendance: 10,670

Initially, I was struggling for a second round tie. The only remote viability was Stockport/Torquay which hardly got the pulse racing and was postponed anyway. Then came the final match of the weekend (Kettering v. Leeds), the final goal (Leeds’s equaliser), the third round draw and the last ball out of the venerable velvet bag (the one part of the cup tradition that even the FA doesn’t dare meddle with). The winners of Kettering/Leeds would go to Man U. For me it was a winner in extra time: I just had to be there for the replay – and I had to be in with the Kettering lads. Such gate-crashing is known as “doing a Motors”, a phrase coined by a friend, Nick, after he snuck in with the Vauxhall Motors fans for a replay at QPR. It’s huge fun. You’re an honorary fan for the day. I’ve been in with the Tamworth lads at Hartlepool and, most memorably, with the Farnborough fans at Darlo (Rocky Baptiste, snow, orange ball, upset and all).

I’ve always found Elland Road a forbidding place even on low-key nights like tonight. You can’t help feeling on edge from the moment you park your motor on a trading estate (for £3 to a yellow jacket: wonder where that money actually goes). That moronic, monotonic “Leeds, Leeds, Leeds …” chant kinda like sums up the atmosphere.

The Cup starts to lose its innocence in the second round proper. All about were Burberry baseball caps, mounted police, and bald, rotund security men wearing over-large orange jackets and Bluetooths standing in the shadows of Howards Way (great name for a part of the stadium, incidentally). That sunny day at Bridlington Town seemed a long, long way away. About the only cosy thing about this occasion was a chap – wearing a red and white Kettering hat easily mistaken for a Santa hat – laying out swathes of flags before kick-off (pictured top) with the care of a mother hanging out the bed sheets on wash day. The guy in front of me bought his sandwiches and a flask, the last dying ember of non-leagueism on this season’s FA Cup trail.

The bustle outside contrasted with the emptiness of the ground inside. “Your ground’s too big for you!” the 1,365 Poppies fans chanted and, indeed, I hadn’t seen so many empty seats since, well, the previous round and let’s face it that would take some beating. To be fair to Leeds the Cup is obviously not top priority and they had hosted Huddersfield only three days previously. The lower tier of the away stand was full, though. “You’re not famous any more!” we sang before launching in to “Stand up if you hate Diamonds!” (Took me a few renditions to make that one out).

Leeds tore at Kettering straight from the off. They played some lovely smooth football full of slick one-twos and off-the-ball movement, Beckford gliding and pirouetting around the pitch with great grace. I bet he’s a good dancer. Kettering’s goal led a charmed existence – as it did throughout the match. I haven’t seen so much domination of a match without goals since England/Poland in ’73. Leeds had 44 goal attempts in all (and hit the woodwork four times) compared to Kettering’s six.

Leeds took the lead on 20 mins with a Becchio header from a cross. It triggered a one-man pitch invasion from our end by a bloke who was grounded just as he was hurdling the advertising hoarding which must have hurt. Purple jackets this time: ‘Response team’, they call themselves. Somehow Kettering managed to go in at half-time with no greater deficit. They went from lucky to plucky in the second half and enjoyed a most unexpected purple patch culiminating in a goal. Heslop burst through the Leeds defence down the middle, pushed the ball out wide to Richie Partridge (fab name) who crossed to provide Elding with an unmissable header. “We” went potty. My ears were literally ringing with the racket. The Kettering support was brilliant.

And so to extra time – and yet more Leeds dominance. Time and time again we turned our heads to the giant video screen to see in disbelief exactly how Leeds had failed to score at the far end. Finally, at the start of the second period of extra time they got a breakthrough when Grella blasted in from six yards. The until now mute Leeds fans didn’t so much cheer as let out a huge gasp of collective relief. The killer third goal followed a minute later and by the final whistle it was five. A cruel end to the tie perhaps but any other outcome would’ve been a travesty.

So for Leeds it’s off to Man U as, indeed, it is for the zeitgeist of the whole competition. I shall leave it there.

Some more extra-time:

- Tonight I saw the Poppies and I’ve previously seen the Lambs and the Daisies. But even these can’t compete with the nickname of Market Drayton Town: the Gingerbreadmen. And I point all this out as a fan of the ertswhile Biscuitmen ...

- The more I write this blog the more I’m reminded of the BBC’s slogan for its coverage a few seasons ago: ‘One cup, a thousand stories’. Sums it up so well.

- Click here for a clipping from the Guardian about the longest ever FA Cup tie – which went to six matches. It was a fourth qualifying tie in 1971. Ah, those were t’ days.

- Check out this "miss of the century" from the aforementioned Rocky Baptiste. Click here.

- And finally for now, here’s a picture of a windmill beside a football ground in Milton Keynes. Nowt to do with the Cup but somehow pleasing all the same. I’ve pinched it from this recommended blog.