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Nobody expected the Millers to stay in the First Division for more than a year following promotion in 2001 but Ronnie Moore steered them to safety in that first season and last season they finished the season in 15th place with 59 points. They were in the play off positions during the early part of the season but faded.
Moore has struggled due to financial restraints like most managers and was able to bring in just two free transfers during the summer. Julian Baudet arrived from Oldham and Scott Minto was signed from West Ham.
It went worse when his board accepted an £850,000 offer for former Claret Lee although he was able to use some of it to sign Reading’s Martin Butler who has been amongst the goals.
Middlesbrough’s Bradley Jones was with them for a month earlier in the season and Carl Robinson from Portsmouth is currently there on loan whilst Guy Branston has just returned for a temporary period at Wycombe.
But things have not gone too well this season and they have spent much of the time in the bottom three although they did climb out a couple of weeks ago after beating Franchise. The Clarets dumped them back in though last Saturday when Derby took all three points off us.
That 3-1 win against Franchise was achieved with ten men with Stewart Talbot sent off although it has to be said that by that time the scoring was complete and Franchise themselves had seen one goalkeeper substituted and a second sent off.
The first two goals came from Martin Butler and Chris Swailes but when Martin McIntosh scored the third he became only the fourth Rotherham player to score all season.
The Rotherham team was:
Mike Pollitt, Chris Swailes, Paul Hurst, Martin McIntosh, Shaun Barker, Stewart Talbot, Paul Warne, Carl Robinson, John Mullin, Richie Barker (Mark Robins 88), Martin Butler (Will Hoskins 90). Subs not used: Gary Montgomery, Julian Baudet, Nick Daws.
Click HERE to see all Rotherham’s results this season.
Past Results in the last 20 years
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
a | |||||
1983/84 | 3 | a | 1-1 | 5,544 | Flynn |
h | 2-2 | 4,676 | Scott Biggins | ||
1984/85 | 3 | a | 2-3 | 4,646 | Biggins |
h | 7-0 | 3,907 | Hird(3 1pen) Biggins(2) Devine | ||
1988/89 | 4 | h | 1-0 | 9,290 | Oghani |
a | 1-3 | 5,726 | Farrell | ||
1991/92 | 4 | a | 1-2 | 6,042 | Conroy |
FAC | h | 2-0 | 9,775 | Conroy Lancashire | |
4 | h | 1-2 | 13,812 | Francis | |
1992/93 | 2 | h | 1-1 | 9,684 | Deary |
a | 1-0 | 4,989 | Heath(pen) | ||
1993/94 | 2 | a | 2-3 | 5,553 | Laws(og) Francis |
h | 0-0 | 10,806 | |||
1995/96 | 2 | h | 2-1 | 10,478 | Eyres(pen) Philliskirk |
a | 0-1 | 5,553 | |||
1996/97 | 2 | a | 0-1 | 4,562 | |
h | 3-3 | 7,875 | Cooke(2) Barnes | ||
1997/98 | FAC | a | 3-3 | 5,709 | Cooke N Moore Weller |
h | 0-3 | 3,118 | |||
1999/2000 | FAC | h | 2-0 | 8,110 | Cook Mullin |
2001/02 | 1 | h | 3-0 | 14,820 | I Moore Weller Payton(pen) |
a | 1-1 | 9,021 | Taylor(pen) | ||
2002/03 | 1 | a | 0-0 | 7,575 | |
h | 2-6 | 14,121 | Davis(2) |
Click HERE
to see more results against Rotherham.One from the past
A cricketer and a man with big glasses
Burnley 7 (HIrd 3,1pen Biggins 2 Devine) Rotherham 0
Canon League Division Three – Saturday 2nd February 1985
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Matters had been made worse by the poor early year weather and this was our first league game since New Year’s Day when we went down 2-1 to Wigan at home. That result was hardly a surprise and after winning at Cambridge we had collected just 1 point out of the last 21 available to us and we were on the bring of the bottom four.
The directors had taken action and put the Gawthorpe training ground up for sale with the National Trust expected to buy all the land we had there and two members of staff were made redundant as we had to say goodbye to Commercial Manager Wayne Dore and Vic Gibson (Sales Manager).
But two knights in shining armour had arrived in the board room as the Club added two new directors. One, Jack Simmons, was well known for his sporting achievements with Lancashire County Cricket Club as a spin bowler and he was to take over Dore’s commercial responsibilities.
The other, the man with the big glasses, was unknown but it would not be long before every Burnley fan knew the name Frank Teasdale.
There was some good news though, we had signed a goalkeeper on loan. With Roger Hansbury on the transfer list and expected to sign for Southend in came Scunthorpe’s Joe Neenan and he was making his league debut for us.
Derek Scott was appointed club captain in place of Tommy Hutchison but this seemed a strange move with Scott having been out of the side for months with injury although on the morning of the match he made a comeback with the A team.
There was even more good news for the new skipper as his wife Gillian gave birth to their second child Paul who eighteen years later was to follow dad and elder brother Chris (as well as Uncle and Grandad) by making the first team squad at Burnley.
The inspirational John Benson shuffled his pack moving Kevin Hird onto the right side of midfield and switching Neil Grewcock over to the left with Tommy Hutchison taking a central role. No, nobody else understood it either but having tried Tommy as a sweeper at least he was in a more forward role.
For much of the first half it was no different and but for poor finishing by Tony Simmons and ex-Claret Terry Donovan we would have been a beaten side well before half time. But then things changed when Peter Devine gave us the lead against the run of play. Hird played no part in this goal but he was to play a major part in the rest of them.
Just two minutes after going through the Colne born Hird latched on to a Devine pass to crash in an unstoppable shot from the right and five minutes after half time he put one on a plate for Bertie Biggins.
Nobody could believe it, we hadn’t won at home since October, but it got better when Hirdy got his second from the penalty spot after Grewcock was tripped in the area and on 63 minutes he completed his hat-trick before laying on further goals from Devine and Les Lawrence.
I’m sure we would have enjoyed it even more had we known that the goalkeeper who kept picking the ball out of the net was to play for Blackburn later in his career – Bobby Mimms but at least we had some fun baiting winger Alan Birch who had signed for Burnley from Chesterfield in 1984 before changing his mind at the last minute and joined Rotherham.
It was just the win we needed to help pull us away from the relegation area but it was an oasis in the desert and there were to be just two more home victories as we slumped into the basement division for a seven year stay.
The teams were,
Burnley: Joe Neenan, Geoff Palmer, Peter Hampton (Les Lawrence 65), Steve Kennedy, Vince Overson, Kevin Hird, Tommy Hutchison, Micky Phelan, Neil Grewcock, Peter Devine, Wayne Biggins.
Rotherham: Bobby Mimms, Gerry Forrest, Bobby Mitchell, Mike Trusson, Kevin Eley, Phil Crosby, Alan Birch, Mick Gooding (Mark Rhodes 27), John Dungworth, Tony Simmons, Terry Donovan.
Referee: Ron Bridges (Deeside).
Attendance: 3,856.