A DISMAL DISPLAY BY THE CITY. AND ROCHDALE "NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD" TO QUOTE.

Saturday January 13th 1962.

EXETER CITY 1 (Carter)
ROCHDALE 3  (Richardson 2, Cairns)


Played at St James's Park, attendance 4,000.

Exeter City:- Tinsley; Hudson and MacDonald; Mitchell, Harvey, and Sullivan; Welsh, Rees, Brown, Carter, and Gordon.

Rochdale:- Burgin; Milburn and Winton; Bodell, Aspden, and Thompson; Wragg, Hepton, Cairns, Richardson, and Whitaker.

Referee:- Mr K.G.Aston of Ilford.

Exeter City's display at home this afternoon matched the dismal weather, and Rochdale scored three times to take both points. Some great work by the groundsman had the pitch looking perfect at the time of the kick-off in spite of the rain. Only yesterday pools of water were lying in several places, and there was a fear that a further day of rain would cause the cancellation of the match. The City's attack was again led by the 6-foot Alan Brown, and it looked as if every bit of the new man's bustling energy would be needed against a Rochdale defence in a team captained by the old City wing half Jimmy Thompson and containing three former England "B" Internationals in Ted Burgin, Stan Milburn, and Doug Winton. It's a good job Exeter City do not often play as they did today or they would be propping up the Fourth Division table well before the end of the season. It was a totally poor performance all round, and Rochdale, who were allowed to do as they liked must have thought they had "never had it so good," to quote the Prime Minister's famous phrase.