A BIT OF WAFFLE

Well, a 25-year hoodoo was finally broken on Tuesday night as Rotherham United finally beat Chesterfield. For years, whenever I have seen us play the Millers I’ve thought to myself that surely this unbeaten run couldn’t continue, but it almost inevitably and amazingly did!

And so, when Mark Allott put the Spireites ahead with a well taken volley on 15, it looked odds on that we were going to do it again. The opening stages saw us create numerous chances, none more glaring than De Bolla’s brilliant turn and shot on 20 minutes, but our little pocket dynamo blasted over. Town’s attacking play was certainly fluent and pacy with N’Toya, Campbell-Ryce and De Bolla linking well and causing the Millers defence to be at panic stations for at least the first half an hour. This was the first time I’d seen the Charlton Athletic loanee and I was mightily impressed with his contribution. Not only did he have the tricks, but he showed he could deliver the cross as well. He gave Stockdale, no slouch himself, an absolutely torrid time and the former Middlesborough man can probably come out of this game with some credit in that he managed to cope as well as he did.

However, after the first half an hour Rotherham began to show us why they’ve coped with life in Division 2/1/Championship/whatever-it’s-called-these-days so well. Without being spectacular, they simply began to win tackles and impose themselves on the Spireites. Muggleton had just palmed one effort out for a corner, when Proctor rose to meet a free kick and bang, the scores were level.

If the first half was ours, the second belonged to the Millers as the Spireites began to play a more counterattacking game. Muggleton was then called upon and made a fine save at full stretch to tip away Vernazza’s dipping shot. N’Toya produced an amazing crossfield, defence splitting pass that De Bolla raced on to, but instead of shooting he played it to Campbell-Ryce whose shot was smartly saved by Pollitt.

Pollitt. If there was one feature of this game that I wasn’t happy about, it was that the supporters wasted far too much time and effort in barracking our former keeper, instead of getting behind their own side. One bloke in particular, sat a couple of rows in front of me, simply shouted at him for almost the entire second half! Quite what this achieved I will never know, and he was only silenced when Barker cut inside and arrowed a shot into the bottom corner five minutes from time to win the game for the Millers.

All in all we seemed to come away pleased that we had entertained and put a higher division side under so much pressure. Listening to the radio on Wednesday evening the Millers supporters who called the phone-in show on Radio Sheffield were mainly complimentary about the Spireites game, and even Ronnie Moore said that he thought there was not much chance of us being relegated. Praise indeed from a man who has said in the past how much he dislikes playing the Spireites – but when you’ve had one win in 25 years you would think that wouldn’t you!