Spotland Road is the road leading to the football ground in my home town, Rochdale. The football club has the remarkable record of having never been promoted, nor relegated, from what used to be the fourth division. Rochdale is the home of the first ever Co-operative store (in Toad Lane) and of Gracie Fields, but as a child I was more fascinated by the way the river emerged mysteriously down by the bus station, and the fact that the bus to Ashton-under-Lyme was a different colour from all the other buses.
