League Two semi-final play-off second leg preview – Rotherham v Aldershot
Football fans are a crazy old bunch.
Aldershot Town diehard Oliver Brookland, who is the son of one of the club’s directors, passed up the opportunity for an all-expenses paid trip to France for an educational trip with his school. His decision to pass up the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was not down to illness, or a dislike of all things French, but was because it clashed with the dates of the League Two play-off semi-finals.
A declaration of raw optimism if there ever was one.
When the trip was offered, the Shots’ were looking over their shoulders at the prospect of relegation, but six months on and Brookland’s faith in his side has been rewarded.
Aldershot produced a fantastic run of form during the second half of the season to reach the end of season event but have a 1-0 deficit to overcome against Rotherham this evening at the Don Valley Stadium.
The Millers nicked a 1-0 away win in the first leg after Adam Le Fondre latched on to a disastrous back-pass from Aaron Brown, but Shots boss Kevin Dillon believes his side can improve on their first leg performance.
Dillon told BBC Surrey: "We've just got to improve our movement off the ball, if we do that we can win the game."
"We had nine or so players [performing at] six out of 10 and I've told them they just need to get up to seven or eight out of 10 and we'll win."
It would seem the pressure will be on the Millers this evening as failure to achieve promotion would be classed as a failure.
Experienced boss Ronnie Moore has called for the home faithful to turn their new home at the Don Valley into a cauldron of noise.
Moore told Skysports: "The fans were fantastic at Aldershot and now I hope we can get some sort of atmosphere at the Don Valley on Wednesday.
"We hope there will be 6,500 there and we want some noise. You look at Aldershot and it's a tight ground, it helps with the atmosphere and we do not have that.
"If we were going back to Millmoor with a one-goal lead then the crowd would be right on top of the players and we would have the advantage whereas there is no real home advantage at the Don Valley."
The Don Valley, buried in the depths of Rotherham, may not be the most glamorous of surroundings but while his schoolmates are enjoying the sun-drenched shores of Southern France,
Brookland, tonight, wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Hopefully, for his sake, his team will not just be taking a shot in the dark.
Prediction - Rotherham 1 Aldershot 3
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