Away Day Wiz Diaries #4 (Rotherham)

Another well-trodden path. Another Blades win. A new Blades signing and some bizarre sights.

Alan Pickard

This very fixture usually signals the end of my enthusiasm for pre-season. I get it. It's local. They're probably very willing to take the cash and it probably doesn't take much more than a phone call to organise. Like Chesterfield though, it's very much a well-trodden path.

With Rotherham town centre not offering us exactly what we’d like, the plan of action was to meet in the Church House next to the Cathedral for one before jumping on the tram/train over the city border. Let me put it this way, it’s not exactly a scenic journey, but for an £8 return for me and the son, it's difficult to grumble. I like the tram network. It’s limited. But it works.

Pre-match, spirits were lifted amongst the fanbase with the announcement of the most drawn-out transfer in living history becoming formalised — a left-back called Harrison Burrows from Peterborough. Highly sought after. Arrives off the back of a remarkable season with his previous club, and between us, we concluded that he'd better be bloody good. The club insisted on telling fans "he's part of the matchday squad," so naturally we looked forward to watching him.

The Rotherham ground itself is a brilliant stadium, it looks good, and the atmosphere is generally excellent. It has great views of the pitch due to the steep nature of the bowl and the bars work like bars in grounds should. They get docked marks for not producing a matchday programme much to the disappointment of my mate Ian. But much to my delight they stocked Angelo Poretti. On draught. Given we'd arrived at 14:00 (not sure why) this gave us ample opportunity to sample the Poretti, and it tasted okay, along with a Chicken Balti pie — Pukka by name and nature.

Team news chat followed, and that looks like our strongest available 11 at the minute, with the Croatian Raffle Winner out of the squad “poorly,” I didn't really have my usual sense of "will this pre-season ever end" feeling at at The New York Stadium for once. 

We were excellent first half. Really good. Pressing them into giving the ball back to us every time they had possession, whilst managing to play some brilliant one-and-two-touch football with an intensity I don't remember seeing since pre-covid. The goal we deserved came early. Future Sheffield United Captain Leader Legend Oli Arblaster fired in a corner onto the bonce of Vini Souza who directed towards the corner of the onion sack. A second somehow eluded us not long after when Big Keiff headed one across goal only for the inside of the post to reject his advances.

The second half began much more flat, and Rotherham got an equaliser. The introduction of Peck seemed to lift us again, and I think that boy is going to be a big player for us in the near future. He's omnipresent, he's just always bloody available wherever the ball pops up. And in the 89th minute, he was on the receiving end of a delightful cutback from Sam McCallum (he had a very good game it must be said) and fired one goalwards. The keeper couldn't handle it and there was Louis Marsh to follow up and stick it in the net. We never did get to see the second coming of Roberto Carlos as Harrison Burrows stayed on the bench.

Now, that's where you're expecting this report to end. But no, we're into extra time. 

Rotherham town centre, let's be honest, is a weird place. And you see some weird stuff. So walking away from the ground it really didn't come as a shock to see a coffin (yes you've read that right) being carried through the 6000 crowd towards the stadium by six pallbearers. The impromptu funeral meant we weren't really concentrating on where we were walking and we accidentally ended up in a cracking little sports bar for a swift one. I think it was called the Foundry. And we anticipated no more bizarre antics on our journey back to the station.

But there was still time for two men to idle past, mid-wardrobe change, squeezing themselves into pink burlesque slash basque-type outfits outside the station. And those two blokes, at the death, amongst strong competition from the funeral proceedings, were this week’s winner of the alternative MOTM award. Only in Rotherham eh? 

See you at Huddersfield Wiz.