He'd service the community, but he already has, you see

EIEIEIO….. no. NO. Stop it. Don’t say it. Don’t google the date. Don’t look at hotels. Micky Mellon has told you to not get carried away.

Hard not to, though, isn’t it?

It was a glorious sunny day last Saturday, apart from the three minutes immediately after we left the house when it chucked it down with rain and hailstones and we got fucking soaked. Thankfully it had dried up by the time we got to the pub, which is just as well as it was heaving with Grimsby fans, and we had to sit outside. Fair play to them, great turnout.

The starting line-up was again unchanged, and the first half was pretty rubbish, with few clear-cut chances for either team. Drummond was posing a threat with his pace as usual and had a shot from outside the box on the volley that went just over, which would have been a lovely goal. Sweeney made a decent run down the left for them and his shot at the near post drew a good save from Hudson, but he was offside anyway.

Our cause wasn’t helped by Calum Kavanagh having to go off with what looked like a nasty ankle injury just over half an hour in. From his reaction, it looked bad as soon as he went down, and he tried to run it off but to no avail. Joe Garner came on and immediately threw himself into doing Joe Garner things, pushing and shoving people all over the place. I didn’t see what happened to Stevens, but he was wearing a numberless blood shirt, did he get his nose bust again?

It was hard to see where a goal was coming from. Andy did his best to help by going for a slash, and I got my hopes up when we won a corner just after he left, but we fannied about playing it short and it came to nothing. Jude Soonsup-Bell (who you can hear me stuttering incoherently about on the latest episode of A Thai Football Podcast) headed wide from a corner late on in the half. It was all rather turgid to be honest.

We started more brightly in the second half. It took a good block to stop MOTM Will Sutton’s header from Stevens’ cross, and Grimsby were lucky to not concede when their keeper ran out to the left of his penalty area and had the ball nicked off him by Stevens, but Woods’ shot was over the bar. Their keeper looked increasingly shaky, and there was an ongoing battle between Fondop and Kacurri, their big lump of a centre half.

Grimsby were also having more of a go, and Hudson made another good save from Green after they played a free kick into the box. Jamie Walker hit the bar, and I honestly thought it had bounced off the bar into the net.

As Suzanne Geldard said, it was an ugly game decided by a beautiful goal. I know I wasn’t the only one who raised an eyebrow at Stevens and Drummond being subbed off, but bringing on Hammond and Hawkes turned out to be the game-changer. Woods intercepted the ball just outside our penalty area and passed it to Hammond, who played an utterly superb long-range slide rule pass out to the left. We were all howling that Fondop had been flattened in the centre circle, but credit where it’s due, the referee played a great advantage as Hawkes ran onto the ball and showed great control to run past the defender into the box and put it away.

Fondop showed his appreciation for the referee not giving the free kick he was screaming for by giving him a big sloppy kiss, and I thought it was him that the referee was giving a yellow card to. I missed that Hawkes had taken his shirt off. ‘Over celebration’. What a fucking ridiculous rule that is.

Even with a fair amount of stoppage time, I was fully confident that there was no danger of our defence failing to see out the game. And we had the entertainment of the Grimsby fans singing “Oldham’s a shithole”. The Grimsby fans. People who live in Grimsby. Kudos, lads, that was hilarious. Reminded me of us singing it at Fulham.

I suspect Mellon enjoys grinding out dour 1-0 wins more than he enjoys battering teams 3-0. He sang the praises of his substitutes, saluting Hammond’s “brilliant pass” and Hawkes’ calm finish: “at this time of the season, you’re as strong as your bench”. He was guarded in his response to being asked about ‘the P word’: “there’s nae use us starting to talk about what could be, we’ve got to try to go and make it happen”. Amen, brother. Do your talking on the pitch.

Hawkes had every right to be delighted with his goal, and generously shared the credit for it: “Mike was in a bit of a tussle with the centre back, it’s a great ball from Oli, I was just hoping that Mike would keep fighting with him so the lad wouldn’t come across!” Well, he did that, and Mikey’s a lover as well as a fighter, and he did his best to distract the referee from booking you for taking your shirt off as well.

It's a pity that Micky Mellon prefers gritty 1-0 wins to comfortable 3-0 wins, because the latter is exactly what he got for his birthday. I don’t think he was too disappointed to be honest.

The only change was Hammond coming in for the injured Kavanagh, and the team continued in much the same vein as they have for the last 6 games. Hammond was unlucky to not open the scoring early on when Fondop played the ball to him in the box, but their keeper pulled off a great save and Curtis put it out for a corner before Stevens could put away the rebound.

Chesterfield could only hold out until the 22nd minute, and guess who was on fire against his old club? Stevens played another good ball in from left, Drummond took a touch to control it – not something that always works out well for him, let’s be honest, but he did very well on this occasion, and he shot across the keeper to put us 1-0 up.

You know who else used to play for Chesterfield? You know who got his 50th goal for us at Not Saltergate? And what a way to do it. Hudson, of all people, got the assist, playing a long ball straight up the middle of the pitch, Fondop controlled it and hit a lovely delicate chip over the keeper. Sublime.

Braybrooke had about their best chance of the half, with his shot from outside the area being deflected out for a corner. Paul Cook was clearly furious with his team, making a triple substitution at half-time. The centre half who only crawled out of Fondop’s pocket to foul him in the box (no pen again, ole ole) should count himself lucky that he lasted that long.

They did have more chances in the second half, with Dobra shooting over the bar, and having another tame shot easily saved by Hudson. Did you know that ‘dobra’ is the Polish word for ‘good/OK’? Which is ironic, because he was a bit crap against us, and got hooked 73 minutes in.

Drummond clearly loves playing against Chesterfield and has now scored more goals against them than he did while playing for them. Hammond notched up another assist when he got on the end of a long ball, squared it Drummond, and he tapped it in at the far post. It looked so easy. I’ve no idea what his celebration is, but I like it.

It was a thoroughly dominant performance against another one of the teams that we’re looking to overtake in the league. Even Kai Payne, on for Drummond shortly after the third goal, had a decent shot that the keeper had to put out for a corner. What great night. 50 goals for Fondop, 100 appearances for Sutton, and we soared up to 11th in the table. An excellent early birthday present for the boss, who was serenaded with “ten more years, ten more years, Micky Mellon”. What a difference a few weeks, and six wins in seven games, makes.

Once again, you could hear our fans loud and clear in Mellon’s post-match interview. He was pleased, as he should be: “we found out a lot about ourselves tonight, that we can go and run with these teams now at this end of the table”. Drummond is “a maverick…so full of energy and enthusiasm”, Fondop was praised for the tactical job he did – “he followed it through to the letter” – and Hammond is “outstanding”, “superb”, “brilliant”. But we shouldn’t get carried away.

Drummond, God bless him, kept saying “clean sheets win games”. Kane, son, that categorically, objectively isn’t true. Our defence have been brilliant, and the run of clean sheets is a great base to build on, but clean sheets don’t win games. You can keep a clean sheet and not win; you can win without keeping a clean sheet. Goals win games. Your goals won this game. Take the credit. You deserve it.

Friday 6pm contract announcement, was it? Excellent. Not ten more years, but two will do. In Mellon we trust.

We’ve shown that we can batter the teams fighting relegation; we’ve shown that we can batter the teams above us. We’ve now got a chance to do both again this week, with games v Harrogate today (if they sing ‘Oldham’s a shithole’, fair enough) and a big test v Notts County this Tuesday. I’m not looking at the league table. I’m not looking at hotels. I’m just enjoying this run. KTMFF.

Written by Arlene Finnigan. Photos © Oldham Athletic.