ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE. BOXING DAY, FRIDAY 26th DECEMBER 2025

As Rochdale just get over the line at Morecambe.

Old acquaintances were resumed today at the Mazuma Mobile Stadium as Rochdale FC visited for the first time in over five years. Unlike some clubs we are experiencing for the first time this season, the Dale is a familiar opponent for the Shrimps. This is what I wrote about them in my review of other National League clubs earlier this year:

Rochdale AFC has played at Spotland – 64 miles south from the Mazuma Mobile Stadium in what was once Lancashire but is now Greater Manchester – since 1920. The ground is now totally owned by the club and has been since 2016 – at a time when they had shared it with local Rugby League club Rochdale Hornets since 1988.

(Spotland was the venue chosen for a World Cup Rugby League game between Ireland and Fiji in 2013 and attracted 9,000 spectators: over three times the football club’s usual home gate – which was an average of just 2,552 last season.)

Rochdale AFC was founded in 1907 with the motto “Crede Signo’, which seemingly means `believe in this sign‘ – and sounds much nicer than `Crude Signo’ which probably involves your fingers and doesn’t sound very nice at all….

But what does `believe in this sign‘ actually mean? Which sign?

Of the Times?

Give Way?

Who knows? Is it meaningful? Is the fact that the two words are also an anagram of Green Disco similarly significant? As I say, who knows?

Anyway, Dale initially played in the Lancashire Combinations (Second; then First Divisions) and later in the Central League. Like so many of their peers, they took advantage of the Football League’s expansion in 1921 and became original members of the Third Division North. This was eventually re-badged as The Fourth Division and – exactly eighty years later – they were still in it. (That is to say, they were still in the EFL’s lowest tier, now known as League Two. To be fair, they had been promoted once in 1969 but five years later were back again in the basement of the EFL’s Closed Shop.)

During 2010, though, they went up into League One only to slip back again two years later and then went on to be promoted anew in 2014. Yazz tells us that The Only Way is Up but Rochdale have proved this not to be the case. In 2021, they were relegated to League Two anew and then – in 2023 with former Morecambe icon Jim Bentley at the helm for most of the season – they lost their league status altogether after almost a century of more of less constantly failing to stir the blood of their success-starved supporters. (Their only brush with proper glory was when they reached the two-legged Final of the virtually brand new League Cup in 1962. But they lost at Spotland 0-3 to Norwich City and were beaten again at Carrow Road 1-0 to lose 4-0 on aggregate.)

Last season, Dale finished fourth in the National League, which is an improvement on their performance a year previously, when they came eleventh , which must be a good sign, mustn’t it?

If it is – remember: Crede Signo everybody!

Morecambe and Rochdale have met fourteen times in various competitions, all within the last twenty years. Dale have won five of these; the Shrimps four.

Several players have appeared for both clubs. A dishonourable mention must go to David Perkins, who abandoned Morecambe just before our EFL promotion season because he clearly thought himself too good for us. Boo! Andrew Tutte hasn’t been missed either and the jury’s out on Lewis Allesandra but honourable mentions must go to Jack Redshaw, Max Taylor (who will be playing for them this season) and perhaps particularly the magnificent Toumani Diagouraga. Former Morecambe favourite David Tutonda is now also plying his trade with the Dale.

Both of the fixtures between the two clubs next season are scheduled for Bank Holidays. The first one will be held at the Maz on Boxing Day, Friday 26th December 2025. The reverse fixture at Spotland will take place on Good Friday, 3^rd April 2026.

Rochdale arrived by the north Lancashire coast at the very top of the National League – with either two or three games in hand on all the chasing pack. Jim McNulty has steered Dale to a situation where they have won sixteen of twenty league games so far this season. Morecambe, by contrast, have lost almost as many – thirteen – of the twenty-three fixtures they have completed this season. Rochdale started today’s match on the back of just one defeat in their last six league matches – and five victories, most recently at Altrincham last Friday night, where they won by three goals to nil.

The official Dale website and X feed is awash with seasons’ greetings from individual players; the Manager and the Chief Executive – which is a nice touch – but there is nothing specifically about today’s game.

Just over a week ago, the owners of Panjab Warriors and specifically Chairman Kuljit Singh Momi promised Morecambe fans: “You will hear from us more”. Yet there is nothing of a seasonal flavour on the official website from anybody at the club. Thankfully, though, there also wasn’t the latest instalment of the cringe-worthy pre-match `interview’ starring Manager Ashvir Singh Johal in which he usually waffles-on about `processes’ and the `video room’ instead of answering hard questions about his tactics; the performance of his team – and particularly certain members of it. Maybe we were spared this charade just because it’s Xmas and the crew who put it together had better things to do. But I personally hope they make a collective New Year’s Resolution to scrap this staged, scripted drivel permanently.

It was a lovely, bright sharp day in north Lancashire today with hardly a breath of wind. Rochdale brought a lot of fans with them to celebrate Boxing Day and there was a really good atmosphere at the ground, which was packed.

The buoyant mood lasted all game long among the home because – for once – Ashvir Singh Johal’s team did the Manager, themselves and the supporters proud. This team wasn’t the disjointed and apparently demoralised bunch who played so dismally here last time out against Boston United. These players looked well-organised, determined and actually dangerous.

The league leaders had a game on their hands right from kick-off. After three minutes, Morecambe were charging down their right flank in the shape of Emmerson Sutton only for a Rochdale boot to block his resulting cross for a corner. From this, Jack Nolan tested the visiting goalkeeper with the first strike of the match but Nathan Broome saved easily enough. The men in the blue strip were constantly looking to counter-attack, though and a looping cross from Kyron Gordon on the Dale right found a lonely Ian Henderson in the middle only to see official Morecambe Man-of-the-Match Jamal Blackman turn his shot away for a corner. Even at this early stage, you could see how the visitors intended to play the game: push-up and press with a high line; fall back and then lob a ball over the top for their forwards to run onto. Ironically, this very tactic would probably have caught Dale out on several occasions if it had been used against them because of the high line they consistently favoured. But Morecambe were stymied – yet again – by the fact that the man Ash had chosen as Centre Forward in the shape of Rolando Aarons never wins the ball in the air; rarely controls it when it is played to his feet; is slow to react in any case and is not strong, big or determined enough to actually lead the line effectively. Admiral Muskwe returned from injury later on and caused the Dale defence more problems in the twenty minutes or so that he was on the pitch than Rolando had all game until that point. So if the Admiral was fit – why on earth did the Manager choose not to start with him? (Answers on a Xmas Card to Panjab Warriors, please…)

Nolan’s fierce strike from a long way out was blocked by Harvey Gilmour after a quarter of an hour or so and then Broome was forced into another fairly routine save from George Thomas which was deflected by Gordon with seventeen minutes on the clock. The away goalkeeper then did well to push a corner from Nolan over the bar with twenty minutes played. Another warning of things to come then arrived in the twenty-third minute when Ryan East played another ball over the top towards Tobi Adebayo-Rowling only for Blackman to leave his line and drop on the ball before the Dale man could reach it. Gilmour then tried his luck from distance after 24 minutes – and missed. Morecambe then had a couple more half chances via a shot from Nolan and a header by Ludwig Francillette from a Set Piece before Referee Aaron Jackson was conned by Rochdale’s Joe Prichard when – having pushed the ball just too far ahead of him in the Morecambe penalty area – he decided to fall dramatically as if he had been fouled.

I personally think this was the pivotal moment of the game. Pritchard had already been booked for a foul on Maldini Kacurri. But this blatant dive should have seen him sent off. The game could have changed completely if he had been.

Instead, Connor McBride stepped-up to take the penalty kick. And Blackman denied him, diving full-length to his left to keep the ball out of the net. But home fans’ cheers had barely subsided when Referee Jackson bowed to a linesman’s call to re-take the penalty. This time, the cheat who had `won’ it stepped-up to take a second shot at goal (I don’t think this should be allowed personally: the original taker should do so again) – and was again denied by a phenomenal save by the big Morecambe goalkeeper. Three penalty saves in a row now for Jamal. And he continued to earn his corn throughout the rest of the game…

The entire Morecambe defence was caught-out, though, by a favoured tactic by Rochdale right on half-time. The central defenders – Francillette and Skipper Alie Sesay today – were a.w.o.l. and Jamal was probably too far out in his penalty area (as he tends to be) as veteran Henderson ran down the middle of the pitch and latched onto a ball played over the top yet again – this time from a ball hoofed forwards by his own goalkeeper – and lobbed it over a stranded Blackman into the net. Extraordinarily enough, this was the one hundred and sixty-second goal this man has scored for the club. Well done him. But even in arrears, Morecambe continued to push forwards and Broome made a really good save from another Francillette header in injury time.

It was a really disappointing score as far as the Shrimps were concerned at half time. They had asked most of the questions and were probably the marginally better team at that point in the game.

So what would happen in the second half?

Would the visitors go into their shell and hold onto what they already had? Or would Morecambe pick-up the pieces and regain the momentum?

It looked good for the home fans initially. Just two minutes after the re-start, they were level. Dale conceded a free-kick on the Morecambe right about thirty yards from goal. Jack Nolan took it and swerved the ball past the wall to hit Broome’s right-hand post only for it to bounce over the line as the visiting goalkeeper made a despairing dive to keep it out but didn’t get there. After that, it was a really good game. Rochdale obviously aren’t top of the pack for no reason: they play some excellent football. Their Manager shook things up with several substitutions and I thought they were starting to slowly take control after about an hour or so. Blackman performed further miracles – including a double save in the space of two minutes when he turned substitute Tyler Smith’s seemingly goal-bound effort away for a corner after 66 minutes and then somehow managed to shove Charlie Waller’s header up; against the post and away following the resulting dead-ball kick from East.

But the leaders weren’t to be denied. They won the game with another really good goal in the eighty-second minute from Gilmour which gave Blackman absolutely no chance. The travelling supporters behind the goal went nuts – as well they might: this was the icing on the Xmas cake for them.

So – at the risk of sounding like the Morecambe Manager and talking about What Might Have been, I thought Morecambe were unlucky to lose this afternoon. If the cheat Pritchard had been sent off, for example. If the Admiral had started today. If the Shrimps had eleven men on from the start (as opposed to ten plus Rolando Aarons)…

But none of these things happened. The defeat saw the Shrimps slip one position in the National League to twenty-second: well and truly right in the mire at an often fateful Christmas time.

Rochdale continued to march on right at the top of the Xmas tree and it seems that they are destined to return to the EFL.

I had a certain amount of sympathy for the Morecambe Manager tonight. His team had just won two games in a row and kept two clean sheets only to be beaten by the slimmest of margins by probably the best club in the league.

I would like to wish everybody a Happy New Year free of any worries such as a third relegation in four years as I leave the final word to Ash:

“To be on the front foot and take the game to them was really positive. I’m really proud of the players and the performance they put in today.”

Morecambe:  40 Jamal Blackman; 5 Maldini Kacurri; 6 Ludwig Francillette (Y); 8 Miguel Azeez; 12 Rolando Aarons (20 Mo Sangare 75’); 14 Alie Sesay (C) (11 Admiral Muskwe 75’); 18 Ben Tollitt; 33 Arjan Raikhy (17 Paul Lewis (Y) 63’); 28 Emmerson Sutton; 32 George Thomas (29 Elijah Dixon-Bonner 88’); 36 Jack Nolan.

Subs not used: 1 Archie Mair; 2 Lewis Payne; 3 Raheem Conte.        

Rochdale: 25 Nathan Broome; 2 Kyron Gordon; 4 Ryan East (22 Dan Moss 85’); 6 Ethan Ebanks-Landell (C) (Y); 8 Harvey Gilmour; 14 Tobi Adebayo-Rowling; 17 Joe Pritchard (Y) (19 Jake Burger 45’); 21 Connor McBride (10 Devante Rodney 71’); 35 Charlie Waller; 37 Ryan Galvin (16 Casey Anthony Pettit 85’); 40 Ian Henderson (38 Tyler Smith 63’).

Subs not used: 11 Anthony Jesus  Gomez-Mancini; 3 David Tutonda.

Ref: Aaron Jackson.Att: 4,266 (1400 from Rochdale.)