Spotland (Rochdale)

Spotland is a name that really belongs high up on the “to do” list for a blog like this. Home of Rochdale, that’s two lovely names in one go. I can only apologise I didn’t get round to it sooner.

And strictly speaking, I wasn’t in Rochdale, but passing the Manchester ring road meant I got within a six minute drive of Spotland and once you’re that close, well why wouldn’t you?

I pulled up outside the away end on a beautiful Friday afternoon and was almost underwhelmed. Spotland is made up of four relatively new looking stands. Not brand spanking new, but not as old as I’d hoped for. New enough to not have oodles of charm about them, but old enough not to be sterile and awful.

A club shop inside the stadium was closed but looked wonderfully full of Rochdale related tat. Who doesn’t want a Spotland wall clock? Other than that there wasn’t much going on. Quite literally really, as someone pulled the shutters down and locked the stadium up as I walked past.

And that just about won it for me. If your stadium has a woman who shuts the lockers on it to close it like a shop, that’s just the sort of mental touch that gets you big points on the football ground wall chart.