Excerpt from the book Life Sentence by Mark Hodkinson
Leaning against a wall, head hung low, a lad of about 10 sobbed. The Rochdale shirt he was wearing shuddered every time he drew breath. His Dad put a hand on his shoulder and gestured as we filed past. The expression - imagine a smile ironed flat - told us: "He's got a lot to learn." We have each of us learnt about this club down the years and the pain it can inflict. It has made some of us old before our time and has turned idealists into cynics.
The end of our promotion dream came in a wholly appropriate way, a wholly Rochdale way. We were taken hundreds of miles from home, to Home Park, Plymouth, for the final torment. A win, no matter how slender, would have taken us into the play-offs, but chance after chance was spurned. We drew 0-0 while Blackpool won 3-1 away to Darlington and took our place in the play-off zone.
Many of us felt it would end this way. We have a sixth sense, a feeling "in our bones" that we are perpetually destined to fail, and not just conventionally but with added, twisted cruelty. We are persecuted by bad luck; it forms our shadow. Supporters of all clubs make this claim, but we are the kings of the suffered as our record of 27 seasons in the basement division testifies. As I walked past the crying boy and towards the exit gate at Home Park, several thoughts flickered across a mind beset by stultifying melancholy.
Would I, if I had my time again, choose to support Rochdale? In short, no. Actually, make that no way. I would affix myself to any other club rather than Rochdale. They have hurt me too much and the balance between victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, has always been hugely disproportionate in favour of the negative. This revelation will cause some of my friends to sigh. They feel I am defined by my support. As a person, I'm perceived as fiercely loyal, a champion of the underdog and an optimist, so to forsake Rochdale FC is to forsake myself. I don't like it that I'm swathed in this peculiar sporting martyrdom. I'd prefer to possess these qualities without them being imbued in my club. Football is supposed to provide an escape from real life, not more of the same.
When I saw the lad being comforted by his Dad, I thought of my own two sons, aged 2 and 4, and whether I should pass on the legacy. I hitched myself to Rochdale in 1974, when the ground was falling down around us and Boot Boys waged war on all sides. We finished bottom of the Football League every other season and the average home attendance was just over 1,000.
Rochdale FC is a different entity in 2001. The club is a professional set-up with palpable ambition and only an unmitigated disaster (please God, no!) would cause it to slip back. So, if they show sufficient interest - and the signs are promising - and vow not to pop inflated crisp bags near me or run up and down the aisles, I have no qualms about taking them to Spotland.
My final thought, as 1,000 of us shuffled disconsolately down those steps, was an incongruous stab of happiness that I didn't make sense of until a few days later. It really was something to be among people from your home town, all that way from familiar streets, and know that every one of us believed in the worth of us being there, all together.
It's some gang, too. We won't win any modelling contracts - unless mullets, shaved heads, acne and fezzes (blue, aptly enough) become de rigueur - but these hearts are forged from solid gold. Somehow, while apathy and fickleness have prospered elsewhere, they have remained steadfast and loyal and have refused to renounce hope and belief. They have also trusted in something outside their control - 11 young men in blue shirts - and, let's face it, no one trusts anyone any more. Evidently, our reward was abject disappointment, but this was to subjugate a greater truth. We were alive last Saturday, truly alive, no longer passive or indifferent like most of the rest of the human race, but teetering on the edge of glory or despair, up to our eyeballs in it. We lost out on a play-off spot and possible promotion, but our lives felt enriched in some strange way. If I were that lad's Dad, I'd be proud.