Season 4: 1st Half – We Are Premier League!
‘Dale have made it to the premier league after back to back to back promotions! We ended up romping home clear of the resurgent Arsenal and leaving our promotion counterparts Brighton in our wake after they’ve followed us two divisions. Catch up here!
We’re going to give the team that got us here the chance to prove themselves and NOT try and strengthen the squad with some expensive buys. Not as if we could splash out on anyone that would change us dramatically anyway, we’ve got just under 900k in the bank, so we’re saving up and giving the squad the chance they’ve earned. Carter and Howard are our highest valued players after contract negotiations, both now valued £2.4m, and I’m tipping Howard to play for England and go abroad at some point after his wages are increased massively! Betts looking good too now at £2m – good price for a 21 year old!
No reserve team players have come through for us, but looking around the league there’s a few cracking names that have cropped up!
We start off away at Elland Road against Leeds! It’s not a dream start as it’s a rather scrappy affair, and all square at the break. In the second half our best player Betts gets injured and Severeyns gets away to squeeze one home and we start off in the top division with a 1-0 defeat.
Next up, our home Premier League debut at Sandy Lane against Derby. Not the most glamourous of Premier League Debuts but the bigger names will come to our tiny ground. Thankfully Betts wasn’t injured badly against Leeds, but its Karl Connolly who scores our first Premier League goal after half time, following a nervy scrappy 1st half. Andy Howard, living up to his new price tag gives a man of the match performance and bags a second for us just before the end and we have 3 premier league points!
We win away against Wednesday, draw against our first really big name visitors, Everton, at home, then go to St James Park to face the Annual Premier League Runners Up(tm) Newcastle. In a fairly even match, Phillipe Albert has a shocker, letting in Betts, then Henderson, to secure a 2-0 away win! The momentum is short lived as we lose by a single goal at Blackburn, before getting back on track with 2 home wins on the bounce versus Charlton and Swindon, putting us in a very good league position.
We’ve got a string of tough games next. 2 legs in the league cup against Burnley, Aston Villa away, Liverpool at home and the current Champions Tottenham at White Hart Lane! The first leg against Burnley is a dour game that’s last on the highlights running order, 0-0. Then it’s off to North London to face Spurs! The team acquit themselves admirably, not letting the occasion get to them at all, outplaying established internationals, and getting our reward in the second half when Richard Hancox blasts one home to give us a famous 1-0 victory!
It doesn’t let up as next we host the mighty Liverpool. A whopping 5081 fans cram in to tiny Sandy Lane to see us face, and utterly dismiss the reds in a stunning performance, seeing them off easily by 2 goals to nil, Connolly and Betts scoring. We are rolling now having found our feet in the top division, seeing off Burnley in the CC Cup 2nd Leg 3-0 to get drawn against old cup rivals Nottingham Forest, before beating Villa 2-1.
A shock defeat at home to Barnsley brings us back down to earth in front of our highest crowd of 5408 and threatens to burst our bubble as we next host Forest in the League Cup. Another record breaking crowd of 5549 cheer us on and we race into a 2 goal lead, Betts and Henderson bagging, before Collymore pulls one back, but the two goal advantage is restored on the stroke of half time by Howard. It stays that way until full time and we get Liverpool again in the next round.
This sets us off on a stunning run of results as we smash gate records consecutively whilst going unbeaten to the halfway point, registering wins against Arsenal, Man City, Ipswich, Q.P.R. and Palace, drawing with Man Utd and Oldham.
Our highest gate, and arguably our best performance and result, comes against the Reds again in the league cup, as we again beat them 2-0 in front of 5686 fans, Andy Howard again proving his worth scoring 2 in a 10 out of 10 performance! He LOVES playing against Liverpool having scored aginst them in 3 previous seasons cup matches! Next up in the cups, Villa again in the League Cup and Man Utd in the FA. No easy games for us!
This fantastic run of results for us, coupled with some awful runs elsewhere, means at the halfway point we are a staggering TEN points clear at the top, ahead of Swindon! Betts is leading the scorers list with 14, and him and Howard are just behind Severeyns in the Average Ratings. At the other end Q.P.R. and Ipswich look destined for the drop, the third drop zone spot is anyone’s!
Elsewhere, Brighton look set to follow us up a division again, albeit a season behind this time, they’re also 10 points clear, of chasing West Ham. At the bottom its anyone’s guess who’ll go down, Forest not looking great with the potential to get relegated in consecutive seasons!
So with a 10 point lead can we hold on to win the Prem in our debut season there, in what would be a truly stunning triumph for the little teams? Will we collapse and get reeled in by the chasing pack? Are Rochdale going to be entertaining the likes of PSV and Bayern at Sandy Lane next season? Find out next week!
I4NI 
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