Rochdale
The club
Rochdale were founded in 1907 and play at Spotland Stadium in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, currently named the Crown Oil Arena, holding 10,249. They are the Dale. Home colours are black and blue shirts, white shorts and blue and black hooped socks.
Recent seasons
Rochdale have just come back into the Football League after three years out of it. They were relegated from League One in 2020/21, finishing 21st, then finished 18th in League Two in 2021/22 and were relegated out of the EFL in 2022/23. In the National League they were 11th in 2023/24, fourth in 2024/25 and lost the play-off eliminator, and second in 2025/26 with a club record 106 points from 46 games, 33 wins, seven draws and six defeats, 88 goals scored and 41 conceded. Only York City, on 108, finished above them. Rochdale beat Scunthorpe United 2-1 in the play-off semi-final on 3 May 2026 and then drew 2-2 with Boreham Wood after extra time in the final at Wembley on 10 May 2026, winning the shootout 3-1 to go up. They begin 2026/27 in League Two.
Honours and landmarks
Rochdale have never won a major national trophy and have never played above the third tier. Their honours are the Lancashire Combination Division One titles of 1910/11 and 1911/12 and the National League play-off win of 2026; they took promotion from the fourth tier in 1968/69, 2009/10 and 2013/14. The club's best-known landmark is the 1962 League Cup final, when they became the first club from the bottom division of the Football League to reach the final of a major competition, losing 4-0 on aggregate to Norwich City over two legs. Their other distinguishing statistic is endurance in the lower divisions: after relegation in 1974 they spent 36 consecutive seasons in the fourth tier before promotion in 2009/10, and they won only two league matches all season in 1973/74. Record attendance is 24,231 against Notts County in 1949/50. Gary Jones made a record 464 league appearances. Ian Henderson is the record league goalscorer with 164; Albert Whitehurst scored 44 in 1926/27, the club record for a season. Record fee paid is £150,000 to Stoke City for Paul Connor in 2001; record fee received is £1,000,000 from Wolverhampton Wanderers for Luke Matheson in 2020.
Notable scorelines
Record victory: 8-1 against Chesterfield on 18 December 1926. No record defeat was established from the sources consulted, and a reviewer should check it. The result the club will remember from this year is the play-off final of 10 May 2026, a 2-2 draw with Boreham Wood at Wembley won 3-1 on penalties.
Head-to-head notes
No published all-time head-to-head records were established for Rochdale's 2026/27 League Two opponents. The club's official site was not successfully consulted for this dossier and web search was unavailable, so this is a gap in the research rather than a finding that no records are published. Two of this season's League Two clubs were in the National League with Rochdale last year, York City and Oldham Athletic being obvious points of contact, but no head-to-head figures were established for either, nor for Newport County, their first league opponents, nor for Tranmere Rovers, whom they meet in the cup. Chesterfield, against whom the record win was set in 1926, are also in League Two this season.
Right now (2026/27)
Ian Watson is the manager, appointed on 9 June 2026 after Jimmy McNulty, who took the club up, left to join Stockport County.
The summer has been busy and almost all of it undisclosed fees rather than frees. Winger Cian Hayes joined from Peterborough United on 2 July and midfielder Will Jenkins from South Shields on 8 July. Centre-back Laurence Maguire arrived from Milton Keynes Dons on a free on 9 July, and a second centre-back, Sam Sherring, came from the same club on 27 July for an undisclosed fee. Goalkeeper Sam Waller signed from Harrogate Town on 24 July. Two more arrived on 28 July, winger Zain Silcott-Duberry from Sheffield Wednesday and goalkeeper Jake Spaven from Wigan Athletic. Departures were mostly releases and moves down: Liam Humbles to Altrincham, Kyron Gordon to Stockport County and David Tutonda to Accrington Stanley.
Rochdale's return to the EFL starts earlier than most. They are away to Tranmere Rovers in the preliminary round of the EFL Cup on 1 August 2026, which is the first competitive fixture of their season. The League Two campaign opens away to Newport County on Saturday 15 August 2026.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_A.F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Rochdale_A.F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_National_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_EFL_League_Two
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.