Just been out to get my paper in sunny Rochdale. The East wind is really bitter, as cold as it’s been for a long while. If it’s like this on Friday it’ll be whoever wants to be out there the most that will win the game.

James Carr - At The Dark End Of The Street If you only have one Soul record ——-

The Doobie Brothers - What A Fool Believes

Look at that pitch !

They just want to have a fight, the fact that there’s a football match going on is just a convenient smokescreen.

Brittain was playing centre half at the time . Why ? I don’t know. Barnes had half the pitch to run into. Once you let players like that get a run at you they have the advantage. JRC had him playing facing his own goal most of the time. Backing off to buy time is all well and good but when your opponent gets to the penalty area it’s make your mind up time. You need to be more aggressive and make them do something.

I haven’t been a Pickering fan in the past but I thought he was among our best players on Saturday, as he was at Leicester. When JRC was subbed off in the cup Brittain came on in his place and got the runaround off Barnes. I’d leave things as they were.

Playing regularly has got to be an advantage as opposed to just training and sitting on the bench. In Mowbray’s time the attitude appeared to be that senior players were selected to play at that level as some sort of punishment and was to be avoided.

Blondie Chaplin - Bye Bye Babe Can I just ask - is the object of the game to keep it going or is the object to “ checkmate “ so there are no other moves ?

My grandson is 16 now and real centre half/second row forward material but no way would I take him to the upcoming derby or let him go on his own. By contrast I was going to the derbies on Ellen Smith or Yelloway coaches on my own in the 1960’s when I was 13,14,15. The coach from Rochdale usually went through Whitworth, Bacup etc picking up Burnley fans all the way. Nobody ever bothered me and I was sat there with my blue and white scarf on. Where did it all go wrong ?

Well this is the story I got told by a guy who’s family were engineers going way back. If a foreman was getting too big for his boots the guys would wait for him leaving at night. They’d climb up the old gas lights or lamps and blow out the flame, leaving the area in complete darkness. Then the foreman would get a “ lamping “.

Amen Corner - Bend Me Shape Me

Billy Joe Royal - Down In The Boondocks.

The game was end to end. That suited us. If they had have gone down to ten it would have been everybody behind the ball and try and catch us on the break. Maybe they would have done ?

Go with the right attitude and we’ll be alright. Go there thinking it’s going to be easy and we’ll come unstuck. Games are only easy when you’ve made them easy. We were great against our last two opponents but - we scored first in both games.

I’m glad they kept 11 on in some ways. We always seem to struggle playing against 10.

Very, very sad news. He would have been in the prime of his life. We’ve had a couple of similar incidents in Rochdale late at night in the last few years. One punch fights, were the victim is knocked over, bangs his head on the ground and is fatally injured. Blokes watching too many Westerns and thinking punching somebody in the face is nothing.

Yeah he was exactly the same age as me and I always envied his career. That was until Everton came to Rochdale in a pre season friendly. He came over to take a throw in right in front on me and I spotted a bald patch emerging under a comb over at the back of his head ! This would be when both of us were about 21 or 22. I wasn’t so jealous then.

Steve Warriner - Small Town Girl

Buckley should have hit the target as a minimum. That was a bad miss.

RIP. Will something be done now ? Somehow I doubt it.

I’d have Kendall for his all round football nous.

I said that to my son at the time.

They once got beat 6-2 at Newcastle. Headline in that nights Manchester Evening News “ Football Pink “ - “ Reds In Eight Goal Thriller “. It’s like playing Wales at Rugby Union, you don’t beat them, you just score more points ( goals ) than them !

You might have but you were on your own.