R&DSFL last gasp strike stuns Hyde

Hyde 4 - 5 Rochdale

Rochdale amp; District Sunday Football League Open Age side progressed to the final of the Manchester FA Inter-League competition for the second year running, beating Hyde in a nine goal thriller with a four goal man-of-the-match performance from Danny Parker.

Rochdale started brightest and for the first 10 minutes were camped in the Hyde half.

It was no surprise when Danny Parker, star of the Under 21s two weeks ago, scored with a neat lob. He quickly made it 2-0 with a great finish after beating three men - by now Hyde were in awe of his pace and just could not contain him.

Hyde clawed a goal back just before half-time courtesy of a harsh penalty decision and came out in the second half as Rochdale had in the first, with a real sense of purpose and a desire to win the game, and Rochdale found themselves in a very different type of game.

Big games sometimes bring out the best in players and the smallest and lightest, and probably youngest on the pitch, Danny Parker, completed his hat trick with a third goal which most spectators expected would put Hyde out of the game. However, Hyde would not lie down and they scored two goals in quick succession to level the game and looked the most likely to go on and win.

As the game reached the last five minutes it was so tight and tense that no one could predict who would win, until it seemed that it would be Hyde when they took the lead from a corner.

It really did look all over for Rochdale with so little time to recover, but letting their heads drop and giving up is not their style; Davy Luker and Michael Barker pressed from midfield and Parker always looked likely to score up front.

With less than two minutes to play and still pushing hard they won a free-kick in a dangerous position. The free kick found Barker who levelled the game at 4-4 and so it seemed the game was headed for extra time, until that man Danny Parker topped a man-of-the-match performance with the winning goal, literally as the referee was about to blow for full time.

Rochdale Squad

Tyson, Mooney, Cooper, J Luker, Cryer, Storey, Barker, D Luker, Leonard, Dowsing, Parker, Jepson, Hodson, Hayes.