First Keith Hill, now Lee Clark... everyone's having a pop at Rotherham, says FanZone blogger Niall Geoghegan
Leave us alone - and hands off our manager!
The Don Valley playing surface has seen Rotherham cop it from all angles.
FanZone blogger Niall Geoghegan hits back - of sorts - and warns local rivals Barnsley to stay away from Mark Robins...
Nice to see Notts County finalised their signing of the embarrassingly unambitious Sol Campbell last week. In my opinion the man's never smacked of dignity ('I'm loved at Spurs but Arsenal are offering more money... I'll go and then go AWOL when I make a mistake') which means the move isn't that much of a surprise.
Also not a surprise is Ian McParland's 'steady building' process - the supposed intention of signing good lower league players rather than 60k-a-week fallen Premier League heroes - going to pot the minute Sven wants to make another headline.
But seriously, good luck to them, especially if the owners suddenly get bored and decide to play with another club whose fans will suddenly become sickeningly arrogant and believe they'll be better than Barcelona in three years' time.
As for us, we've bounced back from defeat at Bournemouth with three not-entirely-comfortable but nevertheless encouraging league victories over Grimsby, Rochdale and Macclesfield. New signing Adam Le Fondre bagged a goal in each game and looks like he could provide that energy, pace and goalscoring nouse we've missed since Mark Robins was a player.
Joint record signing Tom Pope, meanwhile, bagged an excellent brace in the epic 4-3 Carling Cup defeat at West Brom last Tuesday. It was one of those nights that felt more like victory than defeat; we attacked a strong West Brom side as much as they did us, and in a game of excellent football from both teams the only grievance was that we couldn't force a deserved penalty shootout.
But before that night at the Hawthorns, the talking point of last week was the Don Valley pitch in Sunday's win over Rochdale. Having had U2 play there the nights previous, the pitch was basically in a bit of a state - yellow in one half, green in the other.
After the game, Dale boss Keith Hill and assistant David Flitcroft decided they'd found glass and nails on the pitch and that it was unsuitable for a football match, so consequently filed a complaint to the Football League.
Playable
Their arguments appeared to lack consistency and something smacked of bad losers, but if there genuinely was dangerous debris on the pitch then it's a shocking call from the ref (who gave it the go-ahead) and they're right to report it. Either way, RUFC hadn't really done anything wrong. The ref might have, Don Valley officials might have, Bono might have, but not the club.
Having appeared to have blown over, however, the issue was raised again the other night as Huddersfield manager Lee Clark slammed the 'park standard' pitch following the Terriers' 2-1 win in the JPT. So now we can't get our pitch into a state deemed playable for lower league football. Another reason why leaving Millmoor, where the brilliantly-kept pitch was a constant source of pride, was a huge mistake.
Clark's complaints suggested that Hill's, 10 days earlier, weren't as irrational as many Millers fans expected, but the reason for our suspicions were that it wasn't the first time the 40-year-old, becoming increasingly renowned for his ranting, had been upset with us.
Firstly, he was outraged after a 96th-minute equaliser at our place last season robbed Dale of a deserved point, his fantastic post-match rant that 'the ref felt sorry for Rotherham in their plight' ranking amongst the most incredible outbursts ever.
We then swooped for Stockport's Jason Taylor in the winter, beating Hill's club for Jaybo's signature presumably based on significantly better wage prospects. 'For them to offer more money than a solvent club like ours stinks', was the next furious Millers bashing.
Administrations
Needless to say, too, that when we pinched Adam Le Fondre from them this summer, further criticism ensued. I'd go as far as to say we've developed a strange sort of rivalry with Rochdale over the last few years and unfortunately we're the baddies.
While Rochdale are a small club who keep afloat by paying reasonable wages and taking financial care whilst also playing nice football, we've been through two administrations and yet still nick their players off them.
Based on the opening month of the season, it looks as if this battle is one in which the baddies will ultimately triumph, while the goodies will remain fourth division furniture for the foreseeable future.
On a final note, rumours are rife that Mark Robins is to be Barnsley's next manager following the dismissal of Simon Davey on Saturday, with SkyBet suspending betting at one stage yesterday afternoon. The points I made a few weeks back for why Robins wouldn't leave for Norwich remain the same in this instance, adding the fact that Barnsley would struggle to pay compensation for Robins, especially given they've just paid Davey off and don't even seem to have the money of some League two clubs.
But the possibility of losing Robins scares me, and that's a good thing. The reason it scares me is because, for the first time in years, we've got a team who ought to get promoted. Not a team who might get in the playoffs with a bit of luck, not a team who'll look good but then display an underlying frailty which will be cruelly exploited by better teams, but a team that SHOULD gain promotion.
We have relative off-field stability, though owning neither our ground nor training facilities may suggest otherwise. We have a manager who knows how to win games and now seems to have his side playing football. All of that points toward success, success that we've been starved of since the turn of the century, but losing our manager might just unravel the hard work that has gone into building that success.
So for every defensive substitution when we're 1-0 down, for every painfully dishonest 'we could have won that game twice' after not hitting the target all game, for every dodgy signing and uninspiring display, Robbo, we salute you. You're the man to take us up.
