Interview with Mark Hodkinson about Believe In The Sign on www.rochdaleafc.com
Crede Signo - Believe in the sign.
By Col.
Date: 18/1/2007.
With a new Dale book hitting the shelves this week, we caught up with author Mark Hodkinson (author of Life Sentence) to ask him about his latest offering "Believe in the sign" and how he sees things at Spotland today.
Q) It's been over five years since the release of Life Sentence, why release another Dale book now?
I thought I'd done with writing about the Dale. However, I found some writing I'd done years ago - some of it 20 years old - and decided it was better than the material on which I'd currently been working. As a writer you try and move away from your usual themes, locations etc but quite often this means it loses authenticity. I fastened personal stuff on to a narrative of growing up in the town and supporting Dale and found it blended together well.
Q) Whilst our history hasn't always been illustrious, the 70s was pretty
much about as drab as it got supporting Dale. Why choose this decade to base
the book about?
It just happened to be the part of Dale's history that I bumped into first as a kid. I suppose there is a kind of ghoulish fascination in looking back at the worst of times. While I worked on the book I kept thinking how great it was being away from those days, how much better it was now…and then Steve Parkin started to take the club backwards at double speed. Suddenly, I had all those old fears again like I did in the early 1980s, that we were going to go down and maybe not come back. I'm still worried obviously because I think the legacy of Parkin's calamitous reign will take some shaking. I hope there's another kid making notes now so he can look back at this current period and write a book about it in 2032. A happier book, at that.
Q) What was your one abiding memory of supporting Dale in the 70s?
This perpetual Saturday, where I'm waiting for a bus on Queensway, dodging puddles, getting pie and peas and taking up position in the Sandy. Kicking off. Night-time coming in the middle of the afternoon. Dale scoring. And then conceding. Lots of shouting, abuse and encouragement. Getting off home in the dark, the bus windows steaming up. Philip Larkin would have loved it.
Q) Many Dale fans are of an age that will have seen them miss out on
this era. Should they steer clear of this book or is it something that all
Dale fans will be able to relate to?
I think the best bits are not actually about the Dale. I write about supermarkets coming to town, Ashfield Valley flats, horrible estate pubs, Lesley Molseed being abducted and murdered, the hot summer of '76, the mills shutting down, everyone getting CB radios, being a Yopper. I wanted to evoke the times and spent ages on research, trying to view it as I did as a kid all over again. This is the book's heart, coupled with a nonsensical passion for ambling up to Spotland once a fortnight.
Q) OK, sticking with the 70s theme, Michael J Fox has turned up outside
in his De Lorean, and invited you to go back in time to any Dale game from
the 70s, which one would you choose?
I think we beat Scunthorpe 5-0 in one game and I clearly remember realising we weren't going to lose and that everyone would see the score on telly and we'd be seen as having tonked them. To me, that feeling of well-being and happiness is almost non-existent to Dale fans because we hardly ever get so far ahead and are almost always either disappointed, frustrated or anxious (sometimes all three). Take me there Michael J Fox, and leave me there: 5-0 up and the sweetness of victory forever around me.
Q) And would you come back to the future after? Is supporting Dale
in the 21st Century a better experience than the one endured three decades
ago?
It was until the last few years. I honestly thought we were done with the dismal times. I suppose we have in terms of hooliganism and Spotland being a tip but it's the football that matters most. I think the second Parkin regime was as bad as anything that went before it, football-wise.
Q) Given you've been watching Dale for 30+ years now, have you ever
been tempted to wear your metaphorical 30 years badge and mutter those immortal
words of "I've been watching this club for 30 bloody years and that's
the worst performance I've ever seen" which gets trotted about by too
many to name check every other Saturday afternoon?
Of course, and I'm proud to. What's more, it's the site's job to namecheck every one of these valiant souls. The club owes us everything. We are the club. And this was the problem with the Parkin thing at the end. Because the board tolerated him far too long, we all started to fall out. It should have been a mercy sacking months before he actually went. Winning one game every eight home matches for over a year and it being tacitly condoned made us all start to lose pride. Sorry, I am going on a bit about Parkin aren't I? Still not over it, see?
Q) Looking at Dale on the 21st Century, how do you feel about the appointment
of Keith Hill as manager? And is the club as a whole heading in the right
direction?
Straight away Hill has made a difference. But he only did what the fans wanted:
dropped the ridiculous 4-3-3 formation, moved the players 20 yards further
up the pitch, played wingers etc. It's impossible for any of us to judge Hill
yet. At least he's talking a better game, none of those excuses Parkin tripped
out every week which we all knew had the sub-text of 'Don't blame me'. We
saw Hill and Flitcroft as players and they got stuck in and wore their hearts
on their sleeve. We'll see, I suppose.
I'm not sure whether the club is going forwards. Chris Dunphy too is new to
his role. He is clearly a good guy with the club's interests very much at
heart but the Parkin debacle made me wonder if he could be sufficiently ruthless
when he had to be. David Kilpatrick was never a sacking chairman but I don't
think he would have been so patient with Parkin. I always think, with Dale,
that we can tolerate losing, but we always want to see some endeavour and
enterprising football, whatever the circumstances: heart, in other words.
When this went under Parkin, we were left foundering. Both Dunphy and Hill
have to bring this back to the club.
Q) So anything else you want to say about the book?
I'm really proud of it and feel it's the best I've done. It's my life and the life of everyone who is passionate about football and comes from a northern, working-class background.
Q) And finally, where can Dale fans get hold of this book? And will
it be worth a fortune on Ebay if I get it signed by Bob Mountford?
It's for sale in the club shop, Touchstones, George Kelsall's in Littleborough
and via the website: www.pomonauk.co.uk
I think Mountford's in Australia, so name your price…