There are some games that teams just seem destined to
win.
No matter what the form book says or how the match
pans out, if it’s written in the stars then there’s no changing it.
And, luckily for Rotherham, fate determined that they
would beat the mighty Leeds United in their first league meeting in over 20
years when they visited Millmoor in 2004/05, though how they did remains
something of a mystery.
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After all the Millers had no right to be beating their
illustrious rivals.
Although in the same league, Ronnie Moore’s men were
in dire straits having endured a shocking start to the campaign and the end of
an epic journey for the club was nigh.
Moore had masterminded a miraculous rise at Millmoor,
lifting the club from the depths of the bottom tier to within a few wins short
of the Championship play-offs – all on a shoestring budget and against the
odds.
But the club was on their way back down from their
2002/03 peak and everyone could see what was on the horizon.
The side that had performed so admirably for three
years in the second tier had been broken up, along with the fabled team spirit which
went with it, and it showed in the results on the pitch as 20 games into the
season Moore’s men were still waiting for their first win.
But the footballing gods are always keen on a Roy of
the Rovers type story and a former Champions League semi-finalist coming to a
club who had yet to win for a televised game was just too good to turn
down.
Admittedly Leeds, who played in the last four of the European Cup only
three years previously, were fresh from relegation from the Premier League and
a far cry from the side that had gone on that adventure.
Boss Kevin Blackwell had a rebuilding job on his hands, but his team
still arrived at Millmoor as huge favourites.
And the odds on Moore’s men breaking their duck would have drifted out even further after the lightning fast start made by Leeds as they hit the woodwork four times inside the opening 20 minutes, with Clarke Carlisle denied on three of those occasions.
Mike Pollitt was also called upon to make several fine saves as the
Millers miraculously got to half-time on level terms.
The opening exchanges of the second period did not offer much respite
for the hosts, but when former England striker Michael Ricketts kicked the air
with the goal gaping, maybe, just maybe, it was going to be Rotherham’s night.
With time ticking away it looked as if they could sneak a point from a
goalless draw until they earned a free-kick on the right in the 77th
minute.
Paul McLaren whipped it in to the far post and when Leeds failed to
clear Shaun Barker back-heeled the ball into the six-yard box where Martin
McIntosh was perfectly placed to ram it home.
The size of the potential heist was not lost on the Millers players.
“We seemed to have all the luck we had been missing in one night,”
defender Robbie Stockdale said in best-selling 2013 book Impossible Dream: The Ronnie Moore Years.
“When Martin McIntosh scored I turned round to Chris Swailes, who I got
on really well with, and he just said, ‘How the f**k are we winning this?’.
“It was just unbelievable and we started laughing. There was a massive
weight off our shoulders and even though there was 10 minutes to go or
something we just knew that we were going to win.
“Even the Leeds boys saw us laughing and sort of said, ‘Yeah, we know
what you’re on about’. It was a strange old game.”
Leeds were unable to reproduce their creativity in the final 15 minutes
and the Millers hung on to cap what was another great night at Millmoor.
The season had been so grim up until that point, but this was a fleeting
throwback to what they achieved on a fairly regular basis just a few years
previously, adding another big club to the list of handsome scalps.
Having gone 20 games without a league win it was perhaps no surprise
that when their first one did come it was in a match where they were thoroughly
outplayed and called in a large amount of luck to achieve.
“It was one of my easier ones but I enjoyed it a lot,” McIntosh said of
goal. “As long as it is 0-0 you are always going to have a chance.
“Maybe when they hit the bar so many times and didn’t score we started
to think it was going to be our night and that proved to be the case, but it
was a freak game and one that everyone would say we never deserved to win.
“I have never played in a game so one-sided, it was incredible, we were
really up against it.
“It seemed like we only had one or two chances and I remember Kevin
Blackwell being absolutely shell-shocked after the game and quite rightly.
“Results like that shouldn’t have been happening, but we’d often beaten
big clubs.
“I don’t think any team relished coming to us at all, even that season.
It was a huge game for everyone, we hadn’t won in so long and we hoped that
would kick-start things but it didn’t really get it going unfortunately.”
As Leeds fans will probably testify, Blackwell is
perhaps not the easiest manager in the game to feel sympathy for, but even the
most cold-hearted person will have been able to identify with his plight after
this match.
His side dominated for 80 minutes, hit the woodwork
four times and missed a host of other chances.
Then the bottom-of-the-league side, without a win all
season, go up the other end and score a scruffy winner from a set-play.
Understandably the Leeds boss said it how he saw it
after the game.
“Can you believe it? We should have had it done and dusted
inside the first 10 minutes,” he claimed in his post-match press conference.
“We dominated from start to finish and if that had
been in the real world then Rotherham would have been reported for mugging.
“But fair play to Rotherham. They came at us in the
second half, and we created our own problems.
“How frustrating is it to be a manager? This is a big
blow on the chin for me, but I've got to take it.”
Blackwell also had some words for Moore after the game after taking
exception to the Millers manager’s continual pre-match comparison of the two
clubs’ budgets.
“That was funny,” Moore said. “Blackwell came in afterwards and said, ‘I
wish you’d stop f**king telling everyone how much money I am spending!’.
“He threw a right paddy, I just said to him, ‘What do you want me to
say?’. But that’s what we were always up against, so although we weren’t having
the best time of it, to beat Leeds was fantastic and another great night for
us.”
Ultimately that win proved a flash in the pan as the
Millers sunk without trace and Moore left the club just eight weeks later, with
relegation back to League One being confirmed in April of that season.
But it was fitting that their one moment in the sun
came against a side with such an illustrious history and standing and most
people would not have begrudged them one last hurrah.
