Welcome to Football FanCast’s brand new Rochdale AFC transfer rumours portal – a special place dedicated to all of the fans of the Dale who want to stay completely up to date with everything that’s going on with the club but also to those who are just looking for some entertainment on a daily basis.
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Needless to say, Rochdale are definitely not among the biggest spenders in League One, nor have they ever been the ones to splash the cash that often. It is also quite telling that they haven’t been able to break their transfer record for almost 15 years running now and looking at some of the other transfer business within the league as a whole, that one simply pales in comparison.
The Dale acquired the services of Charlie Comyn-Platt back in 2006/07 from Swindon Town for a club-record fee of £248,000. The defender remains their most expensive signing to date, eclipsing the previous record-holder, Paul Connor, and the £203,000 sum that was paid to Stoke City back in 2000/01.
But it’s not like they haven’t been spending money at all. In 2009/10, they paid £144,000 for Chris O’Grady and in 2010/11 they also bought Anthony Elding for £108,000. The freshest signing in the top ten, however, is that of Jordan Williams in 2017/18 for £104,000.
When it comes to sales, the situation is somewhat more impressive. The only departure that made them more than a million pounds is that of Will Buckley as he left to Watford for a reported fee of £1.1m in 2009/10.
In 2019/20, they also sold Luke Matheson to Wolverhampton Wanderers for £990,000 and Scott Hogan’s £855,000 move to Brentford rounds off the top three sales in the history of the club.
And while the likes of Comyn-Platt, Buckley or Matheson simply have to be mentioned for the big-money fees they commanded, either incoming or outgoing, there have been some significant and famous signing in Rochdale’s history.
For instance, the arrival of Ian Henderson has turned out to be quite a successful move by the Dale as the player ended up becoming a big part of their jigsaw ever since his transfer in 2013. A similar thing could be said for other recent signings like Rhys Bennett or Josh Lillis.
And then there are the purchases from the years gone by like Tony Ford, Andy Farrell, Dave Sutton or the legendary goalscorer Reg Jenkins. There are, of course, more, but these are some of the names whose arrivals ended up impacting the club in the best possible way.