Rochdale Online Alliance Football League Report

Rochdale Online Alliance Football League

With three fifths of the Sartori Sharpening Services Premier Division fixtures already completed the table gives ample evidence of the more competitive football the management committee wished to engender by changing the league format to just two divisions this season.

In recent years, Wardle or Balderstone would have been odds on at this stage to take the title, but this time round any one of the top five will consider themselves still in contention, whilst also knowing that any of the teams below them are more than capable of causing an upset on the day.

Leaders FC Bury Town underlined their pedigree with an excellent 5-3 away win at Walsden the week before Christmas in a game played in difficult conditions, and their away fixture at Balderstone on the 18th of this month may well prove crucial to the final outcome.

Balderstone are unbeaten at home, though they have dropped points to Fothergills and Oldham Boro, and both King William IV and Whitworth Valley have yet to travel to the Kingsway Sports Centre to face Tony McCarroll’s team.

Whitworth Valley have games in hand on both and if they can continue to field a full strength side then a first league title since their return to local amateur football is very much on the cards.

Both newcomers, Oldham Boro and King William IV, have faded a touch after strong starts to the season but Boro looked to be regaining that form last time out as they opened up a four goal first half lead at home to Fothergills before surviving a second half fightback to garner three important points.

The poor weather may well hinder King William who, having moved back to Littleborough Sports Centre, have been frustrated by recent postponements and had to concede home advantage in The President’s Cup, which may well have been a factor in their exit to lower league opposition.

At the wrong end of the table, Star Athletic would appear doomed, with only home games against Walsden and Rochdale Sacred Heart in addition to a succession of difficult away trips including FC Bury Town and Whitworth Valley, whilst games are beginning to run out for the side two places above them, Rochdale Sacred Heart.

Hearts can consider themselves unfortunate to have accrued just eleven points from fifteen games on their elevation to the top flight; a 3-0 defeat at Bury their heaviest defeat of a season that has seen them beaten by just the odd goal no less than five times. They have recorded the league double over the side directly below them, Fothergill & Whittles, but with five games in hand it will be a surprise if Fothergills do not manage to get themselves out of the bottom two come May.

We are at exactly the half way point for games played in the Matterson Cranes First Division and arguably the picture is clearer, with the top three teams trading punches in the race for promotion and the title, with some “easier than most” points to be gained from the struggling sides in the bottom third of the division.

After a heavy defeat in early October to Fothergill & Whittles 2nds, leaders Rochdale Asia have gleaned sixteen points from a possible eighteen, including a revenge home win to end Fothergills’ perfect start to the season, and sit a point clear of Sudden, who have two games in hand.

March appears to be the month of destiny for all three aforementioned sides, especially Sudden who play Rochdale Asia twice and Fothergills in the space of three weeks. Since their own heavy defeat to Fothergills on the opening day of the season, Aidan Finn’s young team have won ten and drawn one of their next eleven league games and are in the last eight of The President’s Cup after defeating King William IV in the last round.

Fothergills 2nds have amassed an amazing seventy nine goals in ten league games, and are still in The President’s Cup, and they face a test of their title credentials on the 18th with a trip to Redvales to face unbeaten Hargreaves. And there maybe we have the proverbial cat. The only team still unbeaten in either division, but with potentially costly draws at Rochdale Galaxy and Chadderton Park sitting alongside impressive draws at Sudden and Rochdale Asia, who both have to travel to Redvales themselves yet.

Of the remaining sides only Whitworth Valley 2nds appear well enough in touch to potentially close the gap but costly draws with Chadderton Park (curiously both goalless) and a shock home defeat to Rochdale Galaxy make that somewhat unlikely.

At the wrong end of the table newcomers Mighty Dragons and Syke are both picking up points after a slow start to life in open age football and so Rochdale Galaxy and Horse & Farrier seem odds on to be in occupation of positions twelth and thirteenth after the last ball has been kicked in anger.

But... stranger things have happened.