Right, before I start I'm going to get something off my chest. On the Rochdale Rivals board there is some random bloke who everytime I don't declare Rochdale are the best in the world, produces a post where he gets a little bit over-excited over something he wrote in during the 2005/6 season.

After the game at Spotland during that season there was some confusion as to why Gareth Griffiths had been sent off and my comments apparantly offended a few in Lancashire, with one of them apparantly writting an article in the programme, and now every time I make a comment that doesn't declare Rochdale are the uncrowned Champions he replies to the thread with....

"I wrote an article about him back in the programme a while back, he thinks that we blame them for us not going up in the 2001/2 season, we have never blamed them."

I would reference this person to the programme from the game at Spotland during the 2002/3 where several pages quite clearly slate us as the reason you didn't get promoted back in the 2001/2 season. One infact has "THIS LOT COST US PROMOTION" printed in big bold letters at the top of the page. Now, surely you have better things to do with your time other than having an orgasm everytime you get to mention a page in the programme that you wrote, so GET OVER IT.

Anyway, back to the point of topic. Last season Rochdale turned into a thorn in the sides of most of the promotion challenging teams in the division. Some of their noteable results including a 7-2 away win at Stockport, 5-0 at Darlington, MK Dons 5-0 at home and City 2-0 back in March. They started scoring goals for fun and scored 12 goals in their final 4 games.

When they faced City and lost 7-1 they still weren't that bad. After we took a 2-0 lead they suddenly woke up and looked very threatening and looked like they were about to equalise just before City made it 3-1. Ironically they actually played worse against us in the game they won 2-0 rather than the game they lost 7-1.

They eventually finished 9th but it could have been so much more for them if they hadn't gotten off to a bad start.

Rochdale's squad is spearheaded by Chris Dagnell and Glen Murray, two strikers who ended the season as two of the leading goalscorers in the division despite seemingly no-one outside of Rochdale noticing this.

Other than him the only other player that really stands out to a non-Rochdale fan as an impact-player is Adam Le Fondre. The striker impressed many whilst at Stockport and is tipped for good things at Spotland.

Keith Hill's record as manager is impressive, despite how short it is. He has won 13 of his 24 games in charge and losing just 4. That sort of record is extremely impressive and could be the backbone of a promotion push for Rochdale. I am going to predict them to finish 4th and make the Playoffs. But the last time they went on a great run at the end of the season (2004/5) saw many tip them for promotion the following season, but they very average at best that year, surely that can't repeat itself.

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