TONY ADAMS AND STEVE Parkin may be old friends from their England Under-17 days together, but Parkin didn’t let that stop him from giving Adams a rude awakening to Coca-Cola League Two football. Only twice in their history these clubs have met in the league, ten years ago, and both matches ended in a draw. It looked to be going that way on Saturday after the first half saw chances spurned by both sides.
It was Rochdale, favourites to be relegated from this division, who showed tenacity and steadfastness in the second half. Boosted in midweek by the signing of Brian Cash, the Irish midfield player, and by Tony Gallimore’s first start of the season after knee surgery, Rochdale were the better team going forward and were very well organised in defence.
Even after Rochdale went ahead through Grant Holt, Wycombe lacked urgency, aside from a flurry of half chances on the 90-minute mark. And when the announcer confirmed there would be four minutes of added time, Wycombe still failed to rally convincingly, despite the fans’ urgings.
Instead, it was Rochdale who provided the grand finale, in the shape of Leighton McGivern. Seconds after Gary Jones had converted a penalty, following a foul by Gus Uhlenbeek on Holt, McGivern found space and drove the ball into the net from 25 yards to make it 3-0. What makes his story special is that this time last year, McGivern was playing pub football in Liverpool. “Sometimes you get a gut feeling about players and I had a gut feeling about McGivern,” Parkin said. “He’s got a lovely manner about him, he’s not frightened or anything, he’s got no inhibitions about coming into the professional game and he proved that today.”
Wycombe must improve if they are to go straight back up as so many expect. “I want to be champions,” Adams said. “So we have to compete and we have to win second balls and then you show your class, which we didn’t do. We didn’t win the second balls today and we didn’t get the ball down and play.”