Rochdale Town v AFC Liverpool, 9th April 2011

This post looks back to the Spring of 2011 and our last trip to the now-defunct Rochdale Town, who sadly folded in the first few weeks of the 2016/17 season. It is particularly sad that we are talking about a non-league club who had strong ties to their Town's senior football league side. AFC Liverpool had visited the Rochdale non-league club on four occasions in our first three seasons.
Our first league match there saw us edge a nine goal thriller. Then there was the cup tie in the fog, which we won 1-0. Our second league campaign got off to the best possible start with a 5-0 win at Rochdale Town. When we headed to the Mayfield Sports Centre in April 2011, we were hoping to continue our 100% record. But as they say, things don't always go to plan.
We travelled to Rochdale Town knowing that the form of AFC Blackpool and Runcorn Town would almost certainly condemn AFC Liverpool to a fourth season in the North West Counties League Division One. The hosts meanwhile only had 9 points on the board all season prior to this match, all courtesy of draws!
Any suggestion that AFC Liverpool would only need to just turn up to avoid the notoriety of being Town's first scalp was questioned within 10 minutes. A throw in from the Town right led to AFC Keeper Michael Christopher needing to get down smartly to his right. Unfortunately the hosts had a fella waiting to gobble up the crumbs, and we were 1-0 down.
Alan Williams and I had been very impressed with Rochdale's number 9 during the early stages. And it was he who doubled the home side's advantage just after the mid point of the first half. He poised his body well as he shot from the inside right position into Christopher's bottom right corner.
The Reds came back into things, and had the better of what remained of the first half. During this period we did get one back courtesy of a looping Shaun Gardiner header, following a cross from the right by David Mather. However, our failure to subsequently equalise during this period was to prove crucial.
Rochdale again came out of the blocks in the second half, and three good chances were missed before they finally appeared to wrap the game up with their third. The Reds went down to 10 men following an intervention from a linesman which saw Conor Murphy red carded, I assume for something he said.
A rush of blood by Town Goalkeeper and Chairman Mark Canning saw Aaron Stafford brought down to give AFC a potential lifeline back into the game with a few minutes remaining. Although John Kennedy did convert the penalty, Rochdale Town hung on for a deserved victory. As their whole squad celebrated at the final whistle, it was very hard to explain on this evidence why they had previously not won a match all season.

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