Hockey: Rochdale Men's 2nds 3 - 0 Bowden Men's 6ths

Stuart Dearden (left) was named man of the match

Saturday 30 January saw Rochdale’s second eleven taking on Bowden’s 6th team at Older Hill Leisure Centre. The reverse fixture had ended in a 5-all draw, so it looked like it could be a good game. Rochdale were going for the win, as they had improved much from their opening away games.

​The match started in earnest with a Bowden push back and they were soon on the offensive. Attacking down the channels and trying to drag the centre backs out wide, to then play overlapping midfielders in through the centre. It was a sound strategy early on, with the centre backs getting dragged out of position and Bowden created many chances early on that deserved a finish. Fortunately, they did not find the back of the net.

Some strong and passionate marshalling from Rochdale goalkeeper Dean Colasurdo got the defence organised and the midfield back covering. As the half wore on Rochdale managed to create some good opportunities of their own, coming close from a penalty corner and managing to miss two open nets at the back post, which thankfully is not characteristic of Rochdale’s front line. Both teams were even, with the score at 0-0 at halftime, although Bowden probably had the better of most of the half.

There were some strong words from coach Imran Ansari at half time, who is the mastermind of the second team's transformation this season, and knows what works for his players.

​It worked more or less from the off, with the home side doing a better job of finding their passes and making them earlier and quicker. Rochdale would get a goal from it 6 minutes into the second half, as man of the match Stuart Dearden created space for himself to receive the ball at the right hand side of the circle. He then skilfully dribbled around three defenders with methodical deliberation before slotting a push past the goalkeeper to give Rochdale the lead.

The goal gave the home side more confidence and they started to play with a three-quarter press, letting more of the play happen in Bowden’s half. The away side however would remain a persistent threat, with their number 91 being a particular handful, with clever, next level movement that didn’t allow the Rochdale centre backs any time to relax all game. It would be the home side who got the next goal though.

A good passage of play down Rochdale’s right, allowed Mike Leaning to slip a ball through to Dean Close at the top of the circle. He collected the ball and hit a firm shot with a slight of stick, that took the goalkeeper a second too long to read it and it just went past his outstretched foot to double Rochdale’s advantage.

The game was not over though and Bowden started to do a high press, which caused Rochdale’s defence a few problems playing out. Rochdale began to concede a few more penalty corners. Fortunately for the home team, Bowden were not as lethal with them as they were in the previous meeting. They scored 0 from about 5 this time, whereas they netted about 4 out 7 in the reverse fixture.

There would only be one more goal in the game, which would be for midfield maestro Manny Ahmed. Rochdale were high up the pitch inside Bowden’s 23m line, but with no way forward, the ball was played backwards. Bowden rushed out to close the play down with Rochdale’s centre back in possession on the halfway line. Spotting Ahmed had drifted off his man, the ball was played into space to him on the 23m line. With some skilful dribbling Ahmed got the ball in the circle and found the back of the net with a triumphant shot, after working his way through Bowden’s defence, with controlled dribbling and steadfast determination.

The final score was Rochdale 3 - 0 Bowden.

Vice captain Graham Broadley said: “It was a difficult game today; the first half performance was not up to our usual standard and we were lucky not to be a few goals down. That said, we did show great character to dig in and come up with the goods second half, although the score line possibly flattered us, as it was actually a pretty even game, with Bowden being a strong opponent but thankfully not finding the goals to go with it. Looking it back on it from their point of view, if they had been as effective on penalty corners as last time, it could well have been a different result today. That said, the lads did well and showed real guts to keep going at it against a good standard team, having to adapt our game several times.”

Stuart Dearden was named man of the match, for livening up the attack and helping create a lot of goalscoring opportunities.