Despite the heavy rain Spotland's pitch is in the words of Rochdale's chief groundsman 'perfect'. As you can see from the accompanying photograph conditions should be ideal for a very good game of football.

"It just goes to show what a little investment in the summer does," said Phil Collinson.  "Even if the game would have been played last night it would have gone ahead."

"We've had no standing water to move, we simply had to come in this morning and cut the grass and mark out the pitch."