RUFC - A Look Back at Last Season - January

Although, traditionaly, February is the shortest month of the year, January was a short month for the Millers with only three games being played after the weather took hold.

The first game that the Millers played was at Don Valley when bottom placed Darlington visited and caused an upset and Rotherham left the pitch to booing fans. Purcell put Darlington in front just after half-time and they went two up when Gary Smith scored just after the hour mark. Gary Roberts got a consolation for the Millers twelve minutes from the end.

After the game Manager, Ronnie Moore said that we 'played too many long balls` while goalkeeper, Andy Warrington said the team were 'shocking`.

Before the next game Gavin Gunning was signed on loan from Premiership club, Blackburn Rovers followed straight away by fellow Rovers player, Marcus Marshall.

The next visitors to Don Valley were Grimsby Town and two Adam Le Fondre first half goals gave the Millers all three points. Wes Fletcher scored a goal for the Mariners in time added on.

After the win, Ronnie Moore said it was a 'brilliant performance`.

The next game was the re-arranged game against Chesterfield at Saltergate, which would be the Millers` last visit to the old ground. With it looking like the game was going to be a stalemate a brilliant ball from Pablo Mills in the final minute of the match found Tom Pope. Pope turned on the edge of the box and shot the ball into the bottom corner of the net. Pope went mad, running towards the Millers` fans while taking his shirt off and swinging it above his head and the fact that he was booked for his trouble didn`t bother anyone connected with the Millers that night. It was also Ronnie Moore`s fist win at Saltergate and he said it was the first time he`d been and not heard 'you`ll never beat the Spireites` sung at him!

Hot on the heels of the win over the 'old enemy` came the announcement that the new stadium was going to be built on the old Guest and Chrimes site, with Chairman, Tony Stewart saying, 'this has got to be the biggest thing that has ever happened to Rotherham United.`

Unfortunately, soon after this news came the sad news that former vice-chairman, Lewis Purshouse had sadly passed away.

Unfortunately, the last game of the month against Macclesfield Town at Don Valley was called off, just two hours before kick-off, due to a frozen pitch.

As well as having only three games in January, we also had three Vital Players of the Month.

Adam Le Fondre got the vote for the game against Darlington. Gavin Gunning was given the award for the game against Grimsby and for the win at Saltergate, skipper Ian Sharps got the vote.

One of the Vital Polls in January was `How will we do in our first game of 2010?` - 25% of voters were correct when they said that the Millers would lose. The first game was against Darlington and was a really poor game.

In another poll we asked After the display against Darlo, will you be going to the game on Saturday - the Poll went like this:

I am still thinking about it - 35%
Yes - 33%
You must be joking - 32%

We also asked How many goals will TOM POPE score this season - 69% thought Tom would score less than five - well, Tom scored five goals in League and Cup last season (let`s hope for a lot more this season)

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.