BBEM forecasts suggested that if the games would have been spread out, we'd have finished 6th.
Between the Maccesfield and Gillingham games, Rotherham had captured two strikers in order to give them that second wind heading into the final few months. Blackburn's Jamie Clarke and Palace's Simon Thomas were thrust straight into first team for the Gills game, and the former grabbed a debut goal. Jaybo laid off Reid who was smothered, Thomas's follow up shot was saved but Clarke found space between a cluster of blue shirts to squeeze in the opener.
Simeon Jackson thought he'd equalised but was ruled offside, then with 10 minutes left Jamie Green claimed just his second Millers goal with a wonderfully taken finish when Taylor had glanced a header into his path. 'well done Jaime mate' some admiring kids and some adults who should know better posted on Green's Facebook wall.
Incredibly, this dour team who haven't won away since 1995 somehow got promoted, again highlighting how poor a division League 2 is.
Three days later Scunthorpe came to the DV looking to capitalise on the 2 goal advantage from the first leg to take them to Wembley. Just like at Glanford Park, the Millers were outclassed, and the away team should have put the tie to bed long before the 75th minute. Joseph made a terrific block to deny Hooper and then Sharps headed a rasping shot from Thompson over the bar when it looked destined to fly in. Woolford smashed the woodwork after Reid had just done the same- his header fumbled onto the woodwork by Murphy.
But Scunthorpe's awfully quiet fans could relax when Hooper broke away late on, tied Fenton in knots and sent 9000 fans to Wembley. Burney and Billy Harp sat in their computer rooms and gloated on the Rotherham board.
Scunthorpe, it became apparent, are one of those clubs - like Fulham - who don't deserve such a good team given they're such a pathetic club. We fully deserve our bunch of losers.
The only good news of the week was that we'd failed in our crazy bid to sign Kayode Odejayi.
Before the shambolic tactics at Wycombe, the articles in the week were very much in the same vein as usual. Tony Stewart categorically denied a return to the only football stadium in the town we've got to be back in in four years time, 'our Steve', Stevie Steve, my uncle's nephew knows Stephen Brogan told the press of how £600 a week for playing the PS3 and dying his hair red for Tonge was the worst year of his life and Mark Hudson proclaimed he would never leave the club he loves (B1g Hud is, at the time of writing, the only contractually expired player not to have signed a new deal).
But the performance in the televised game at Adams Park was a disgrace. Just 87 travelling fans made the long trip to see the away side make no effort to win the game, eventually hanging on for a painfully drab 0-0 draw. And what's the only thing worse than playing for that 0-0 draw? Admitting it.
But surely the Millers' assistant manager wouldn't do tha...oh. 'We went to Wycombe with a draw in mind and it was a great point away to one of the top teams in the league.' Jesus Christ. What's worse was the misconception that because we were playing one of the top teams in the league they were actually any good. Wrong. They were just slightly less dismal than us. I don't know about you, but I felt personally embarrassed that that was my team being negative, nullifying and generally boring on the tele. Awful. Shameful.
Things did pick up a Saturday after with a decent 1-0 win at an inconsistent Lincoln side. The second 1-0 victory over the Imps made them the team we've officially done the double over the most, as excitingly demonstrated by Zip the typical Rotherham man.
Micky Cummins grabbed his 5th of the season with a surely offside goal just after the hour. Lincoln's defence didn't even bother to try and stop him (and it doesn't take much) they were that sure that either Cummins himself or Broughton beforehand were off.
Jamie Green - who was terrific along with Clarke - was desperately unlucky not to seal it late on - a similar type of effort to his goal vs Gillingham but this time it cracked the underside of the bar and came out. 'I swear it hit the net'! Robins cried. Robins also undertook the oath which all managers must and strongly criticised the referee afterwards. Come on Mark, nobody gets angry at the ref when you win the game. You're just getting desperate now.
After the game a new poster joined the messageboard purely to vent his frustration at our 'chav element' (4 fingers), which always seems to occur whenever we play a team within an hour of Rotherham. The Championship's highlights of the game showed Cummins's foot with the voiceover 'Rotherham won'.
The Millers completed another 0-0 double with a promotion side to add to the Wycombe accolade after another insipid display at the athletics ground.
The day before this game, MillersMad made an ethically disputable move by setting up a gambling club to encourage addicts like TFA to chuck away their low earnings. It also established a new clique, so much so that sometimes these days you'll not want to say who you fancy to win the league next season because eloog1gn and REDDUKE the sell out moderator will laugh at you. Any sensible gamblers would have had a few grand on Rotherham vs Brentford to be goalless and dull though, to be fair to us, we had more of a go and could have won the game - Broughton the culprit for many missed chances while Green and Clarke were both kept out by Hamer in the second half.
The talking point of the day came when Pablo 'kill' Mills hospitalised Brentford front man Nathan Elder with an eye-bashing elbow that caused a fractured cheekbone. The up-himself Brentford boss Andy Scott was so furious at Pabs that he threatened to report him to either the FA or the email the editor link, but soon dropped any potential charges when realising taking matters to higher powers is not the way to go. It is not. You just look silly when you're forced to give in. Via his agent, Mills deemed himself 'disappointed' at Scott's outburst before stating that he 'was only being friendly'.
By the way, before the Brentford clash another game was postponed, with the home tie against Morecambe becoming the 86th game to feel Jim Davidson's inefficient wrath. Bill Corby is turning in his metaphorical grave.
The Millers went into the Tuesday night game at pathetically bad Chester knowing that a cleansheet would take them close to setting a new all-time record after keeping 5 previous. But in typical fashion, the backline caved to Kevin Ellison, who slammed the strugglers ahead in front of a crowd of just over 1000. But from then on it was utter misery for City as the visitors bombarded their net with goal after goal.
Reid set things rolling with a pen before a Cummins header and scrappy Broughton goal gave Rotherham a secure 3-1 lead at the break. Reid went on to claim a hattrick with a couple of fine strikes, and surely the vultures were well and truly circling for a team who'd just been battered by an average League 2 side. You can only beat what's in front of you, but any side who go down when three clubs have had 17 points+ deducted must be outrageously bad.
Millersdale started the first of many genius songs, this one entitled 'why don't you score another, Reuben Reid' but unfortunately his audience would rather misspell and talk about Gerry Forrest than understand the brilliant mind of one of the top 10 funny posters on the board.
March also saw the confirmation that former MillersMad hero willritson had in fact been hit by a helicopter. The event had occurred months ago but only on March 12th did the police find ritson's shattered body. 'Nobody believed me at first', wife Priscilla told deano, editor.
A far tougher test stood in our way on Saturday as a visit to 3rd placed Rochdale followed the hammering at the Deva. Second half goals from Reid and a Taylor beauty set Rotherham on their way to probably the win of the season. Adam Le Fondre cut the deficit late on, but Reid even had the liberty to smash a last minute pen against the bar before the Millers took 3 points from Spotland.
Taylor told the after match press that 'it's been a while coming'. It really has hasn't it Ryan. It really has. Rochdale were added to the list of Manchesterish clubs the Millers had turned over on their own turf along with Macclesfield, Bury and Accrington. 18 points off the playoffs but with 5 games in hand on 7th placed Shrewsbury, and 4 winnable home games in a row to come, the playoff dreams started to rematerialize.
The game came in the middle of redandgreen's latest quest to flog some Don Valley badges, but as witnessed by LittlestHobo yesterday when he actually paid money to get rid of the badge, redbutmostly doesn't seem to realise that nobody wants to be reminded we're at Don Valley.
So for the first of those four massive home games that could be the difference between an entertaining end to the season or a big fat nothing to play for. It started with a must-win game against an Aldershot side who'd been on an abysmal run - not winning on the road all year. I lumped on us to win. Surely it was a foregone conclusion.
But no, yet again we bottled it. John Grant exploited a static Rotherham defence and arthritis ridden Warrington by simply standing two yards out and heading in twice - first from a woefully defended long throw, then from a corner. Absolutely schoolboy. We huffed and puffed and eventually pulled one back - substitute Clarke heading in just as I was heading out. If ever a game to look back on and wonder 'what if', this was it. New bogie team well and truly formed? No, not really. Just a relatively fast team with athletic players we couldn't handle. See Barnet.
Speaking of bogie teams, Chesterfield have always been considered one of ours, but a double over them last season started to lift the curse and a 3-0 walkover in mid-March went on to show that there is no such thing as a bogie team.
In front of the biggest league crowd since the opening day, in form Reuben Reid stole the show with his 5th and 6th goals of the month, the second of which was a delightful lob over Chezzi's Tommy Lee. Mills completed the victory with his first of the season late on, but the game was soured for me after realising that I was mentally ill. While everyone else watched the normal half time match between two schools, what I saw was some giant vegetables take on some fruits, and they were quite good! I mean, I dunno, maybe it did actually happen and djtony was too busy reading out MasterMix bits and pieces where the answer is always 1979 and the number one YMCA to actually bother telling the crowd why there was a banana nutmegging a dismayed carrot.
Total football encourager Alan Knill brought his promotion chasing Bury outfit to face hoofball lover Mark Robins' side next, as the away team looked to reverse the October scoreline. Strangely, Knill was quietly heading to the dugout, and then suddenly turned round, picked out one unnamed man, pointed and mouthed 'fack off' with two fingers accompanying, but I don't know why. Knill also told the board of directors to stick it where the sun don't shine, and finished matters by telling our next opponents Accrington what team we had out tonight.
The Shakers, who Rotherham would go on to screw over in a final day scam, threatened early on and Warrington made two saves from Bishop's close range header and Jones's long range smash.
But in another match which seemed to be petering out into insignificance, we were suddenly handed a late gift. Barry-Murphy was penalised for an innocuous tug in the area, and last week's hero Reid had the chance to thrust the Millers back into semi realistic playoff territory. He did, and we had just 7 minutes to hang on. But in stoppage time, Efe Sodje slipped a brick in his bandana and bulleted a ridiculously powerful header beyond Warrington. 'I don't sign enough black players', Robins admitted afterwards. Surprisingly, bigrich later described the game as 'enjoyable', despite it being anything but.
But there was nothing surprising about the next few days and normal service was resumed - Stephen Brogan ignored the inane sucking up on his Facebook wall, Brin failed to handle mild criticism and millerchad shouted 'mardy!' when defending his training ground antics. Faaaaaaaccck ooooofffff.
4 points from 3 home games so far was hardly awe-inspiring and it got worse as a stupidly, stupidly cold game against Accrington saw the 7th 0-0 of the season. Nobody else in the world is this cold Tony. You might have the blubber to fend it off, Brin might, mightiest_troll and any other pro-DV bummers might but I don't. It's not fair. At Millmoor you'd have warmed up 'coz some fat man's piss, probably Brin's, would be bouncing off the urinal and warmly spurting in your face. Sometimes you miss the little things.
Nobody wants details of that game, so the final game of the month saw a thriller at Kenilworth Road as a hilariously but damagingly attacking Luton side did what any Mick Harford team does and conceded more than they scored, regardless of how many they scored. Luton were excellent, and in an attacking sense would compete with most Championship sides, but in typical Harford style his side's early dominance came to nothing as Reuben Reid expertly slotted home the opener - the 20 year old's favourite United goal. 'hi rueben great goal on toosday', lowercasemillers posted on his Facebook.
An outstanding month for Reid, who notched no less than 8 goals in March, resulting in Chris Kamara shouting some congratulating words on the Big League 'why would I want to watch Leyton Orient draw with Swindon when I've just seen it on the Championship' show.
Back to the game and, basically, we raped Luton on the break. Proper had their pants down whenever they had a corner. And the 2nd came when Town failed to deal with a throw-in and Broughton clumsily bundled in his 9th of the season, not actually the worst record in the world for a cheap striker who was never gonna be a 20 goal man. Still a donkey like.
A bullet header from Martin made it 3-1 before the break, but Harrison headed in from 40 yards on 53 to restore the 2 goal advantage. Just his second of the season, and the 3rd time he'd played the ball forward. Hall reinstated hope with a drive that Warrington reacted like a big cardboard jellyfish to, but substitute Hudson lashed in a late 4th on the counter to round off a rarely encountered entertaining win. This wasn't a team or club - the crowd would have touched 6000 if we'd taken any - that deserved relegation. Some Wednesday fan on the Luton board thought they did though, the nob.
At the end of the month fringe specialist and gym-junkie Stephen Brogan earned a deserved new contract after 0 appearances and 0 goals for the season. 'That's our Brog', gushed a number of middle aged men trying to cling to some sort of relation with the 21 year old. It still makes me chuckle that Brogan's publicist managed to make the lad appeal to all the plastic Irishmen like redandgreen residing in Rotherham by conjuring up the nickname 'Paddy' from out of nowhere. Love it.
April was more memorable for court cases, false threats and quitters than the football itself, though that recognisable feeling of close-but-no-cigar returned as the Millers lured you in to thinking there were playoff hopes then threw away silly points and laughed at you for ever having the audacity to hope.
The hope came first in the form of a win at a deteriorating Aldershot, who had more or less plummeted since Christmas, and had essentially only beaten us since. Even we couldn't mess this one up - Reid's season didn't finish in March and he struck a 30 yarder 11 minutes in to claim his 18th of the season. How Aldershot didn't snatch an equaliser late on is a mystery - Robinson's header was saved by Warrington and Charles somehow failed to squeeze the ball in with a mixture of 'keeper and post keeping the home side out.
This is the problem, you see. We bossed that first 10 minutes - barraged an unconfident Aldershot defence. Then we got the goal, and decided to sit on it, and shouldn't have won the game. If we'd carried on playing, we'd have won 3 or 4-1. Do that next season and we won't get the same luck.
A win against Barnet on the following Tuesday would equal a club record of six away wins on the bounce. Vague playoff hopes could still be intact if we grabbed a win against the Bees, and thankfully we have a stern defence who won't do anything daft like concede twice to a 40 year old. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Paul Furlong netted twice late on to consign us to another year in this league, as if we hadn't known it for the best 12 months.
Still, some fans still convinced themselves there was a chance, forging up ridiculous outcomes on the BBC Sport Predictor to make us amazingly finish 7th, beating Shrewsbury, Chesterfield, Bradford, Wycombe and Accrington - who had happened to beat all the clubs near the top 7 by 5 goal margins - by one solitarily goal. 'See, still chance', the likes of rolymiller smiled, reminding us of what it must be like dealing with people who's daughter has been missing since 1999 and still think she's alive. Or, equally, assistant managers who think their inexistent midfield is the best in the division. Even a home win against Notts County three days later couldn't do anything - we were all out of futile hope and prolonging the inevitable 14th placed finish. 'I think we'll win the league' kerry smiled, more convinced than she was in August.
The final few games in April can be summed up in a long paragraph. A 0-0 draw on Easter Monday at Port Vale was followed by a home game against Shrewsbury, who'd famously won 1 on the road all season. Before the game, full marks went to renowned don Graham Coughlan, who correctly identified that the Millers' position was a false one and that we might be higher up the table if not for the points deduction. It's a pity his worldly insight didn't stop every striker in the division taking him to the cleaners when he was with us. 'Heeeebam Hooobaan!' he'd shout at Sharps and Warrington afterwards, and feeling guilty that they'd known Coughlan for a year and had never cared to learn the Gaelic tongue, they'd accept responsibility for his rank bad defending.
Coughlan was in the winning team, though, as a disinterested Millers side caved to the Shrews' bunch of waning old men. Ryan Taylor got the goal - his first at Don Valley (maybe he hates it as much as we do) - in a 2-1 defeat.
The final victory of the season came in the re-arranged game against Morecambe - forgive the lack of detail for, like many, I wisely stayed at home and watched one of the best Premiership games of all time. One of the lowest home crowds in years - under 2000 Millers attended - saw a 3-2 win. But it's ok coz Stewie says so, he's got a wallchart and Booth is a prick lol lol.
An excellent header from Ryan Taylor, a first RUFC goal for Jaybo and a late Burchill pen sent the Millers to a tally of 58, a figure on which we'd finish.
A tame but expected defeat at Bradford ended the month on a mild downer. Robins finished the month by giving another meaningless, cliché-riddled ramble about how our achievements shouldn't be forgotten and how they've had no attention, barring of course the articles in FourFourTwo, the interviews in the People and the Guardian, the weekly mention on Soccer AM, the discussions on Soccer Saturday and even a piece on Football Focus despite the fact that the only non-Premiership clubs who ever get attention on there are some FA Cup Round 1 jokers who's top scorer used to be Rufus Brevett's plummer and who's manager is some Manchester bloke with a growing back number two with a thirst for muddy pitches and tepid cups of tea. Robins also discussed his mate Ryan Taylor, in which he claimed 'I'll judge him on goals'. Taylor recently being given a renewed contract either means Robins was lying, or he finds 4 goals in 37 appearances an acceptable tally.
The Don Valley is famous for hosting concerts, gigs, athletics and now football, but the 2nd of May saw it host its first ever promotion party, as League One chasers Exeter came to town. Yes, the Exeter we stuffed 5-0 the last time we got out of this God forsaken league. 2500 travelling Grecians helped the Millers notch the biggest league attendance of the season, as some inflatable bananas and eventually, for some weird reason, trainers, were visible in an away end where only red and white (and a few spoil sports wearing the away kit) could be seen.
Before the game came all the formalities took place - the WAGS got in on a few photos with the Chuckle Brothers hiding behind the tombola machine, TFA socialised with people he didn't know and added them on Facebook in the evening saying 'hey, what a day we had!' and Stephen Brogan (why on earth Stephen Brogan, by the way?) was presented with the patronising League 2A trophy, which only served as a reminder to all that we're a disgracefully run club.
Exeter were a little edgy for periods of the first half and a better team would have taken advantage - that elusive 10 goal mark evaded Broughton as he went through one on one but messed around with it. The nippy, buzzing Stuart Fleetwood had a glorious chance to settle the nerves before the break but he blazed over when Gill was free at the other side. The tension only increased after the break and Green was close on two occasions, but on 71 the away side made the colossal breakthrough.
Logan hung at the far post above Green and headed beyond Warrington to cause the sort of eruption that DV had never seen before - even when U2 played there - 'deyre a greet band' Cummins told us afterwards. The goal was enough to take Exeter up to League One, meaning Knill's Bury had missed out on promotion by a mere goal, the sort of ridiculous luck that should only be seen in vesabri's predictor attempt - 'Bri, there's no way we can win 10-0 three times!' 'Eyyy you never know in football' 'Urm, ok Bri'.
Upon hearing of Bury's fate, millerchad sniffed the air, looked up into the sky and bellowed 'fack you Knill, fack you!'.
The game did see a brief return for Stephen Brogan, his first appearance since February 2008. Some of Brogan's biggest fans tried to send him goodwill messages via Facebook, but again Brogan didn't acknowledge their existence, so one of them posted a mysterious final message before deleting their account: 'Dear Mr I'm too good to call or write to my fans, this'll be the last message I ever send your ass.' That was all the police could release publicly.
So we finished 14th. Bit boring, but relatively impressive given where we started. The cup runs, clearly, were big successes and massively enjoyable. By contrast, we were 'leggy' in every game since March. But for me, how successful this season was will actually be difficult to determine until next May.
If we gain promotion in 2009/10, 2008/09 will have been a tremendous season of consolidation, of gaining a hard-to-beat mentality and establishing who's deadwood and who's still got a life. If we finish 9th in 2009/10, 2008/09 will have just been another boring season in League 2 where we achieved nothing and made no progress. Judgement, therefore, must be preserved.
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