New loan signing Calum Scanlon is ready to be included in the City team to face Rotherham tomorrow according to BBM at his pre game media conference yesterday. Not fit enough to be included are Rubin Colwill, back in training and going well apparently, but not quite ready for a return yet, and Yousef Salech who is still recovering from the injury he received against Stockport.
I’ve not seen it confirmed officially, but I’d be very surprised if Salech was not concussed when sustaining the injury which forced him off with less than half an hour played. As I’ve not seen or heard anything to say that the concussion protocol in sports like football and rugby whereby any player who is concussed is automatically ruled out for three weeks has been changed or dropped, I would assume that we won’t see Salech for a week or so yet at least.
Therefore, we will have to soldier on without, arguably, our two most potent attacking weapons for a while longer. Not so long ago, that wouldn’t have dented the confidence of the City team and supporters going into the game – we’ve already beaten Rotherham very comfortably by 3-0 earlier in the season and December and January saw them on a seven match losing run which had them looking certs for the drop.
However, they stopped the rot with a 1-1 home draw with Wimbledon and then beat Northampton 2-1 on their own ground. A pair of decent results then, but hardly earth shattering against fellow strugglers.However, last week’s eye catching 4-0 win at an in form Exeter was one of the most eye catching League One results of 2026.
Put that win together with a productive transfer window for the Millers which saw plenty of new arrivals and Rotherham away looks a harder fixture for us than it would have done a fortnight ago.
We used to have an awful record at Rotherham when they played at Millmoor, but their move to the New York Stadium has been good for us and we’ve done well there apart from our appalling 5-2 loss to a side rated one of the worst in the Championship in recent years on the final day of the 23/24 season. So, with us boasting an unbeaten run three times longer than Rotherham’s three without defeat, there’s no need for us to be intimidated going into the game, but we will need a better performance than last week’s patchy showing at Burton if we are to take our unbeaten run into double figures.
On to the quiz, seven Rotherham related questions with the answers to be posted on here on Sunday.
60s. This winger began his career playing for his home town team which may have had a connection with the Civil War. His form was enough to persuade Rotherham to pay a modest fee in a transfer which would have been seen as an upward move for him. From Millmoor, he moved not too far from a river to play for midland birds for a season before moving north to play for a town which includes a golf course that has hosted the British Open on ten occasions. It was at this club that he suffered the leg break which brought his career to an end in 1971 at the age of twenty eight. On the international front, he won three caps for his country with the first of them coming in a 4-2 loss to Denmark, but can you name him?
70s. On your knees in the Netherlands by the sound of it!
80s. I remove link to Kosovo head and end up as a striker for Rotherham. (5,7)
90s. Sounds like someone has strong feelings for a nautical distance!
00s.Twelve club midfield journeyman who played seventy plus times for Rotherham, not to be confused with scoring from sixty yards merchant!
10s. This striker’s boyhood hero was someone about whom there’s an urban myth that he can speak Welsh. He played for eleven different clubs and had two spells with Rotherham in which he only played a total of seven league games. He is definitely best known for his time with a club forty odd miles from Rotherham where he maintained a scoring rate of around a goal every two and a half games over close to two hundred league appearances. After scoring over a hundred goals during his spells with his fifth and sixth clubs, his output declined dramatically with just another seven scored in the four years before he retired. He left the club he had most success with to play in unique colours among the ninety two in a swap deal which saw a future City manager go in the opposite direction and his failure to score a single league goal for his new club saw them eventually loaning him to Rotherham for the first of his spells with them. At least he scored a couple of goals in his temporary spell with Rotherham because when he moved there permanently a couple of years later, he only played twice for them and didn’t find the net. Can you identify him from the above?
20s. Properties down west perhaps?
Answers
60s. Keith Pring began his career with Newport County (it is believed that the club’s old nickname the Ironsides relates to Newport’s association with the steel industry, but there were reports locally that it relates to Oliver Cromwell’s troopers in the English Civil War). Pring signed for Rotherham in 1964 and it was while with them that he won his three Welsh caps. Moving on to Notts County in 1968, Pring finished his career at Southport when injury forced his early retirement from the game.
70s. Neil Hague.
80s. Kevin Kilmore.
90s. Lea Glover.
00s. Mark Hudson, a midfield player from the north east of England, played for Rotherham between 2007 and 2009.
10s. Luciano Becchio’s boyhood hero was another Argentinian striker, Gabriel Batistuta. Becchio signed for Leeds from Spanish side Merida in 2008 and scored seventy six league goals for them before leaving for Norwich in 2012 in a swap deal involving Steve Morison. Becchio was loaned to Rotherham in 2014 and then signed permanently for them two years later, but only scored a total of two goals for the club.
20s. Jack Holmes.
