20 years ago today Rotherham lifted the Auto Windscreens Shield at Wembley by beating Shrewsbury 2-1. Here's how the game might have been covered if it happened today.
I really can't believe we are celebrating this still!
It really was a hollow experience.
It really isn't a significant part of our history. Ronnie's, Evo's and Warnock's achievements put it all in to context:
It's a a trophy designed to keep the losers happy. A bit like giving the fat, asthmatic kid, who comes last in the sack race on school sports day, a bar of chocolate, so he doesn't start crying.
-- Edited by The_Third_ Burglar on Thursday 14th of April 2016 10:05:53 AM
-- Edited by The_Third_ Burglar on Thursday 14th of April 2016 10:14:35 AM
-- Edited by The_Third_ Burglar on Thursday 14th of April 2016 10:21:00 AM
Great report as ever JV - being the true Rotherham fan that I'm sure you are, you will realise the importance of any success for a club of our stature. Anyone who disagrees is probably not a true fan, probably didn't go to Wembley and probably got beat in the sack race at school by an unfortunate fat asthmatic kid.
TTB, you really are a sad bitter individual, maybe there's professional help out there for you. I suggest you seek said help & stop infecting this site with your bile.
He's just a troll, they are the attention seeking loners that plague all social media. Typical MO is to post something contraversial and wait for the responses which they perceive as interaction, or deliberately post the binary opposite on a thread to ellicit a response. Its obvious and childish, should adopt a no response policy to their posts - usually they slink off when not getting any feedback.
I am guessing from your responses that you feel the same way but are in denial.
Be honest what was better the AutoGlass final or our 4-3 win away at Gillingham last year. No comparison is there?
Was talking to a Barnsley fan about it the other day. After being in the premiership he said it felt like winning at wembley t' other week was the same as winning the "fair play" award. Meaningless.
Spot on New Yorkshire. It is the kid in the playground who wants to be liked but doesn't know how, thinks any attention is better than no attention and irritates everyone to get it. The kid who gets told by the teacher to stop it because they are 'spoiling it for everyone'. You can not reason with them. Trolling is the modern manifestation of that. If you respond at all to their posts your responses are either ignored or dismissed out of hand, and the next antagonistic post flies off their keyboard. They don't want to contribute anything meaningful or have a grown up debate.
If TTB really is an RUFC supporter (not sure about that) it is a shame that he or she can't engage sensibly with the rest of us and I hope he or she will do so. Proper discussion and debate (however controversial) is always welcome. Trolling is never going to be.
And back on thread, of course winning any trophy at Wembley is hugely significant for clubs like ours who know that realistically we are not going to get there very often. That is obvious. I have great memories of that day that will live with me forever. Like the twenty seconds it seemed to take for Jemson's shot to reach the net but knowing it was going in, and like being there at the home of football watching my team win with family and friends some of whom aren't around anymore. How anyone can dismiss memories like that as being 'a hollow experience' I don't know.
Okay. So my point is this, with the huge changes in football as a result of the premiership, the widening of the gap between top and bottom and the beginnings of clubs going into administration, the autoglass was a piece of candy thrown to the football beggars to appease them. A short, but manufactured high, which ultimately fails to nourish the game in the lower divisions. Fans may say well we put half a million quid in the bank after winning the trophy but ultimately it is to mask temporarily, the real differences of wealth in the game.
As Gramsci points out hegemony is often achieved through compromise, although it is not a compromise which will eventually change the social order. Just a staged whirlwind faux revolution which takes place in a safe-harbour leaving the real wealth remains unchallenged.
When we entered the cut-throat capitalist business of the championship, our achievements are of much more merit because we have genuinely bloodied the noses of more wealthy competitors. There is a world of difference between this and getting the last dance at the losers ball.
-- Edited by The_Third_ Burglar on Friday 15th of April 2016 11:56:47 AM
So why didn't you say that in the first place - a well reasoned argument such as your last post could have started a good debate and would have stimulated reasonable responses. However, without wishing to repeat what has already been said, your posts are written in a provocative style which irritates the hell out of people who really want to have an adult conversation about their team. You've obviously got a brain so why not use it positively to contribute to or to start threads which we can all read enthusiastically without feeling the need to tell you to get back in your box?
Here's to a reformed TTB (holding breadth with some trepidation).
Okay. So my point is this, with the huge changes in football as a result of the premiership, the widening of the gap between top and bottom and the beginnings of clubs going into administration, the autoglass was a piece of candy thrown to the football beggars to appease them. A short, but manufactured high, which ultimately fails to nourish the game in the lower divisions. Fans may say well we put half a million quid in the bank after winning the trophy but ultimately it is to mask temporarily, the real differences of wealth in the game.
As Gramsci points out hegemony is often achieved through compromise, although it is not a compromise which will eventually change the social order. Just a staged whirlwind faux revolution which takes place in a safe-harbour leaving the real wealth remains unchallenged.
When we entered the cut-throat capitalist business of the championship, our achievements are of much more merit because we have genuinely bloodied the noses of more wealthy competitors. There is a world of difference between this and getting the last dance at the losers ball.
-- Edited by The_Third_ Burglar on Friday 15th of April 2016 11:56:47 AM
I understand what you are saying. That is one way to view the Auto Leyland DAF JPT whatever it is called Trophy. Attendances at the games suggest that supporters don't value it as a competition until there is a fighting chance of a Wembley appearance then they get interested. There have always been less prestigious trophies up for grabs, like the Anglo Italian Cup or even the County Cup in days gone by. Whatever you think of it though the reality is that in our long history we have been to Wembley only three times. Where winning there in 1996 ranks in the scheme of things I am not sure, but I will not forget it and wouldn't dismiss it as an irrelevance.
-- Edited by smiler on Friday 15th of April 2016 12:58:15 PM
Ah! The Anglo Italian, what a great competition that is.
The point is much wider and ones response is of course informed by all manner of beliefs.
I remember as a kid being enthralled by any competition and as such thats a decent thing and a thing of the heart. I dint care who we played and in what format. It was just a joy to soak up the atmosphere even on a wet and cold Tuesday evening against Torquay or Ayr United...it didnt matter. For that reason alone I think the kids coming into the game need to be furnished with this realistic; lived and felt experience of the daily life of their football team, and not just aiming to sit in 'comfy seats' when all the prestige is generated by the materialistic world view that is so dominant today. Once we start judging the value of a game or a competition in such narrow terms not only do we exclude so many legitimate experiences but we lower ourselves and sell our actual heritage. The premier league and the worlds elite in whatever field are no more to be celebrated than home grown talent and local tradition. Pop culture is not the best culture by any measure except its own lack of self awareness.
We cant reject what we are and Wembley 1996 and every other experience is real. It actually happend, and people were very happy and felt blessed and rejoiced. If, one day we are promoted to the premiership then we will still be essentially what we have always been. Isnt that the definition of an authentic and happy life? Success is relative and to be celebrated otherwise we make so many thinking errors and stifle life that only superficiality or Nihilism (thanks Towdlad) can grow.
Its a cause for joy and something to be treasured. One cant deny a past and hope to live connected in a future, no matter how rosy that future may appear to be...
I have pride and a heartfelt connection to RUFC and so it appears to me to be a non sequitur but if you believe we are the down trodden and weak class, dominated by elite clubs then it may appear differently to you. Ive never felt anything other than my identity, which culturally is from a non-working class (underclass) South Yorkshire and specifically Rotherham area. isnt this also part of how we decide on values and to some extent we have to admit that some values carry more life enhancing energy that nothers and some indeed kill life and by life I mean all the expressions of authenticity linked to our experience.
What would be the point of winning my primary schools sprint (which I did) and being Regional champion. What would be the point of starting a small business in Rotherham or of indeed supporting RUFC?
It was perhaps the saddest day of my football life to go to the MK Dons stadium for the first time. It was souless. I could not make any feeling sense of what I was seeing vs what I was feeling. It was like a strange dream. Every character conjured up to torment me and leave me anxious for a return to the real world.
I saw a lady of perhaps 70 adorned with MK Dons scarfs and my mind went blank. I saw Kids with Fathers and Mothers and I felt overwhelming sadness. The former made little sense to me and the latter predicted years of disenfranchised agony for those youngsters who will grow up being despised and who will therefore have to work out an impossible conundrum...they arent real and they dont deserve to be...and that can never change. what ever they attain will always be parent-less and rootless. Even if they win the champions league one day no one else will truly celebrate and even those kids who have known only Milton Keynes will have significant shadows to keep then awake at night...and why? Because one man was greedy and wanted to usurp the natural order of growth and expression and in so doing caused untold pain that carries on to this day.
So, for me there is no point in being anti-self. who can disown ones self and remain rational and happy? One must build on each legitimate experience and celebrate all experiences without ever breaking the thread . To do so might look pretty and meaningful from a distance but up close its an unfathomable mess of the worst tricks our society and self hatred can play on us.
We are RUFC of the clan RUFC and experience is ours.
Twenty years ago, for the first time in the clubs history, we were at Wembley. Not for the FA Cup final, no, not for the League Cup final either, but for a final in a lesser competition. Regardless of the trophy involved, it WAS the first and only time Rotherham United played in the old Wembley Stadium. For small clubs such as Rotherham and Shrewsbury it WAS perhaps up until that time, the only time such clubs and players would ever get the chance of playing on the hallowed turf and the once in a life time chance for fans to go there and cheer on their team.
A big big day then for everyone concerned and what a day to remember........we won. It was fantastic we sang all the way there we sang throughout the game and sang all the way back, we waited at Millmoor to cheer the players when they arrived back and sang some more as they got off the team bus. a day I will never forget.
I didn't get to the play off final sadly, which yes ,in the great scheme of things was perhaps a bigger event in the history of the club, but the enduring memory of that day 20 years ago was a glorious day of happiness, unity and comradeship amongs fans,.....................and one miserable deadbeat wants to spoil it.
Interesting thing I've been to all the Wembley games but I can't really say anyone was more special. It's a joy to be there aways. Even when we lost the memory of the achievement and the togetherness of Rotherham together is real joy.
-- Edited by ian on Saturday 16th of April 2016 01:16:07 AM
