Rochdale Online Alliance Football League

Rochdale Online Alliance Football League

A thoroughly unsatisfactory end to the Sartori Sharpening Services Premier Division title race is playing out as a third top flight team has folded within the past month. Sudden FC are the latest team to withdraw as the wettest winter for many years appears to have dulled the interest of more players who feel they have nothing left to play for individually and collectively as May approaches.

The sole beneficiaries are current leaders Rochdale Sacred Heart as they were the only one of the leading teams to drop points to Sudden, but even that appears insufficient in terms of preventing White Lion from claiming their first ever league title. Midweek away wins at Chadderton Park and Fothergill & Whittles leaves them needing four points from their remaining three games to clinch top spot.

Fothergill sandwiched their home defeat with wins that realistically ended the title hopes of both Sacred Heart and FC Littleborough, and the revised top of the table now stands as follows:

Rochdale Sacred Heart PL 10: PTS 21
White Lion PL 7: PTS 18
FC Littleborough PL 9: PTS 15

Sacred Heart have been hit by injuries and senior team call ups but they went into their crucial game against Fothergill confident of three points that would have really extended White Lion’s chase until the last game of the season.

It is fair to say that the reigning champions have seriously missed the services of last season’s leading scorer, Andy White, this campaign, but he is back now to spearhead their President’s Cup campaign and he warmed up with five goals as Fothergill dismantled Hearts completely in the second half.

Twice Hearts defenders were guilty of trying to shepherd the ball out of play only for White to pick their pocket and slot the ball home, but that was nothing compared to his fifth goal in the eighty second minute of an increasingly one sided encounter. As Fothergill broke down the right hand side the shoulder high ball into the area was curling behind White, only for him to turn and launch a spectacular overhead volley into the top right hand corner of the net from fifteen yards.

The 10-2 final scoreline seems barely believable but on the day Fothergill were simply irresistible, which makes White Lion’s 1-0 victory against them just four days later a result that makes them deserved title favourites.

Rochdale Asia’s march to the Matthew Montgomery & Co Division One title has been complication free, and a thirteenth straight league victory gave them the title with three games to spare. Yet another Omar Malik hat trick saw off the fading challenge of Fothergill & Whittles 2nds, leaving them locked in a three way battle for runners up spot now with Wardle OB and Hargreaves.

No mid table mediocrity in sight as Rochdale Galaxy hosted Falcon 2nds in midweek, with both sides trading goals in an end to end first period that saw Falcon lead 3-2 at half time. Two quick second half goals extended Falcon’s lead, with Galaxy replying, before a sixth Falcon goal seemed to have sealed the points with a little over twenty minutes to play.

Galaxy are an exciting team to watch going forward and now they hit overdrive with five goals in fifteen minutes to turn the game on its head, and pocket all three points, in spite of one last act of defiance from Falcon that left a staggering final scoreline of 8-7.

If Falcon 2nds were at a loss to explain that the proverbial boot was on the other foot just seventy two hours later as they ousted Premier Division title chasers FC Littleborough from The President’s Cup to earn a shock place in the last four.

Littleborough had seemed strangely flat in the previous round of the competition, edging out Galaxy in extra time, and this time the extra period could not save them, nor could the lottery of penalties, as Falcon deservedly prevailed following a resilient display against their higher tier opponents.

Having already added the A&M Memorial Trophy to their league success Rochdale Asia are aiming to complete a historic treble, and their 1-0 away win at Chadderton Park saw them through to the quarter final of the President’s Cup, and a home tie against Fothergill & Whittles, subject to appeal, this weekend.

The winners of this tie will face Falcon 2nds, and Rochdale Sacred Heart’s 6-1 win over Falcon 1sts takes them through to a semi final against Wardle OB; both ties to be played on Saturday 7 May at Firgrove.