Tony Ford MBE played the 1000th game of his professional career this evening, and was man of the match in the process as Dale progressed to Northern Final of this competition. Keith Hill got the winning goal with a header which seemed to come off his ear.

The prospect of two trips to Wembley still looms large for Dale as Dale eased past a very poor Carlisle side. This now puts Dale into the Northern Final with a two legged final against Stoke City. The match took place in difficult circumstances with a swirling wind, and rain beating down on the sodden Brunton Park pitch.

It's fair to say that cup fever never really took hold of the match, with less than two thousand turning up to watch the game, with about 250 coming up the M6 from Rochdale. Perhaps the rest stayed away in expectation of another postponement, which seem to have plagued the Cumbrians in recent weeks. As it happened, the pitch looked fine at the start, but it broke up heavily as the match progressed.

If the Northern Semi Final of the AutoWindscreenwipers Shield was not glamorous enough for the supporters, they also had the pleasure of seeing Tony Ford, described as the "new Stanley Matthews" on the radio pre-match, make his 1000th appearance of his career. It would have been nice if more of a fuss could have been made about this honour with there being no mention over the Tannoy. There was also the disappointment of there being no sign anywhere of Carlisle Steward Monty. Perhaps he is on the US PGA tour or something.

There were changes to the Dale side who crashed to Darlo the previous week. Dean Stokes returned to replace the cup-tied Sean McAuley. Gary Jones replaced Jason Peake in the centre of the pitch, and Phil Priestley made only his third appearance for the club in place of Paul Gibson who has returned to Notts County.

The first half wasn't exactly anything to write home about. Neither side seemed to cope with the conditions, and Carlisle looked a very poor side. On this evidence, Chester have a lot to be confident about. Chances were few and far between for either side, with most efforts not troubling the keepers.

Carlisle had a bit of possession but to be honest, Phil Priestley was virtually redundant. They had a couple of chances which so far off target, they ended up in Scotland. They had their one and only shot on target in the entire game when one shot went straight at Priestley.

Following this brief spell by the Cumbrians, Dale came very close to scoring with two virtually identical chances which both hit the same post. The first saw Tony Ellis rattle the woodwork with a header, though it was eventually scrambled away for a corner. From the resultant kick, Dave Flitcroft also hit exactly the same post much to the delight of the teenage East 17 lookalikes in the top of the East Stand who celebrated like they had scored a goal.
The second half saw Dale have the wind, and for a while it looked like history had repeated itself with the wind suddenly dying down, though this was only a temporary situation.

The second half gameplan worked like a dream. We went out and within ten minutes had taken the lead. Dale were awarded a free kick outside of the box following a foul by ex Villa veteran Shaun Teale. The resultant free kick was met by Keith Hill who headed in his first goal of the season, despite the fact that it seemed to go straight at a bloke stood on the line, who did an admirable job in avoiding the ball.

After that, Carlisle went on to prove what a poor side they are. Their keeper continually kicked the ball out of touch with his goal kicks, with each ending up in exactly the same part of the stand. It became almost predictable. Carlisle tried to force their way back into the game, but Priestley really had nothing to do.
At the other end, Dale forced a succession of corners, with Tony Ford getting a standing ovation as he approached the Dale fans to take the corner. Dale almost increased their lead when a free kick at the far side of the box almost went straight in, though it was scrambled away just for yet another corner.

The rest of the game continued with Dale content to sit back, safe in the knowledge that Carlisle could do nothing to threaten the Dale corner. They forced a couple of corners late on, but they lacked any danger whatsoever.

All in all, this was a very comfortable passage into the Northern Final. Dale never really got out of second gear against what was a very poor side indeed. Anything other than a Dale victory would have been a great injustice. Carlisle, on this performance, are in big, big trouble, especially with no Jimmy Glass to save them this year. This makes it nine wins on Dale's travels this season and it came at just the right time, following back to back defeats against Rotherham and Darlo. Yes, Dale should have got a lot more than just the one goal, but at the end of the day (Brian!), Dale are into the Northern Final, and that is all that matters.

Photo: Action Images

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