Mick
Life President
I paid my first visit to Spotland, or the Crown Oil Arena as it has been so charmingly re-named, just under 58 years ago. A cold December day with snow still on the ground; we were 6th, they were 20th in League Division Four. Despite the World Cup win earlier in the year stimulating interest in English football the crowd was just 1,733. Goals from Colin Flatt and Mel Slack gave us a 2-1 victory. I returned just over a year later, this time a cold February day. We were again 6th and they had improved to 18th and the crowd had increased by 500 or so. This time a solitary John McKinven goal was enough for another win. Fast forward another year and it was a late December visit between Christmas and New Year and, yes, it was cold and snowy. So much so that it was postponed and we diverted to the Bury 5 Fulham 1 match a couple of divisions higher. The second attempt to play that Rochdale match was also postponed when we were half way between Euston and Manchester and it was finally played as one of those three “dead” away matches after the end of the season, an unfortunate end to a stunning, record breaking, albeit unsuccessful, 1968/69 campaign.
The teams have met 55 times previously in league matches (an odd number due to Covid) and we have won 23 of those, drawn 15 and lost 17. We could certainly do with ending our current run of 7 matches against them without a win and our last win at Spotland was a 3-0 victory just over 10 years ago with Corr, Murphy (Jacob) and Timlin all scoring.
Plenty of history but not much to say about the referee. Man in charge of this late kick-off is Stuart Morland from Liverpool who was promoted to National League level at the start of last season. He has not refereed a Southend match before nor, I believe, a Rochdale one. He was an Assistant for our match at Stockport 3 seasons ago.
His 3 National League matches this season have produced a high 17 yellows and 2 reds including cautioning 7 visiting Dagenham players at Hartlepool in his last match. His card count was high last season too!
Assisting will be William Vaughan from Liverpool, not to be confused with Vaughan Williams and David Holmes, a Risk Manager and Internal Auditor from Yarm. The former performed a similar role at nearby Oldham for our draw there last month, the latter makes his Southend debut.
Fourth Official is Luis Griffiths from Bootle and it is also his first Southend appointment.
The teams have met 55 times previously in league matches (an odd number due to Covid) and we have won 23 of those, drawn 15 and lost 17. We could certainly do with ending our current run of 7 matches against them without a win and our last win at Spotland was a 3-0 victory just over 10 years ago with Corr, Murphy (Jacob) and Timlin all scoring.
Plenty of history but not much to say about the referee. Man in charge of this late kick-off is Stuart Morland from Liverpool who was promoted to National League level at the start of last season. He has not refereed a Southend match before nor, I believe, a Rochdale one. He was an Assistant for our match at Stockport 3 seasons ago.
His 3 National League matches this season have produced a high 17 yellows and 2 reds including cautioning 7 visiting Dagenham players at Hartlepool in his last match. His card count was high last season too!
Assisting will be William Vaughan from Liverpool, not to be confused with Vaughan Williams and David Holmes, a Risk Manager and Internal Auditor from Yarm. The former performed a similar role at nearby Oldham for our draw there last month, the latter makes his Southend debut.
Fourth Official is Luis Griffiths from Bootle and it is also his first Southend appointment.
