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I didn’t think I’d be coming back after last week’s hiatus to write about back-to-back wins on the road. Comrades, I was wrong. Blissfully, delightfully wrong.
One of the things I’ve found least enjoyable since our arrival in this godforsaken league has been how much we’ve struggled to beat teams whose clubs were founded in my lifetime. Fylde, formed in 1988 - NINETEEN eighty-eight – have been one such bogey team, doing the double over us last season (one of many new lows), and holding us to a 1-1 draw in August.
We started reasonably well, and early on, Fondop did well to pounce on a weak pass out from their keeper and showed good strength and persistence to hold off the defender – more of that later – but couldn’t finish it. We thought we’d taken the lead just over half an hour in, when Leake made an excellent run down the left, and a nice dummy from Waters left his cross for Lundstram to tap the ball in, but the referee had already blown for offside.
Fondop got a farcical yellow card just before half-time, when his shirt was nearly pulled off his back in the penalty area, he threw it on the ground in frustration at not being allowed to put it back on before we took the subsequent corner, and the ref booked him for taking his shirt off. As Mellon pointed out after the game: “he took it off cos it was round his neck….so that should have been a great indicator that it might have been a penalty.” Apparently not. We were all bracing ourselves for the red mist descending, but thankfully Mikey gave it up to God.
Early in the second half, it looked horribly like history repeating itself. We made a right hash of what should have been a relatively straightforward clearance from a free kick, the ball bobbled around ominously in the box and Whelan put Kirkham and Wesham – sorry, showing my age, Fylde 1-0 up.
The game was briefly held up due to homophobic comments being made to the linesman, and, to their credit, the club tweeted after the game that they were working with Fylde to investigate the incident and stated that the club takes a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of discrimination.
If you think the ref or the lino’s being a useless prick, call them a useless prick, but when you bring someone’s perceived sexuality, gender, race, religion, or disability into it, you’re behaving like a scumbag. There’s no need for it. And if you spat your dummy out on Twitter and squawked about people being ‘woke snowflakes’ and told people to ‘get a grip’ because you don’t like people being called out for being bigoted hateful arseholes, you need to grow the fuck up.
“Oh, but what about our fans calling Stones a fat ginger bastard, should the game have been stopped for that?” Being ginger isn’t illegal in dozens of countries. It isn’t punishable by death in some. There wasn’t a law passed when I was at school prohibiting the promotion of being ginger or the acceptability of being ginger. The Salvation Army doesn’t kick people out of its homeless shelters for being ginger. Hope that clears that up.
We didn’t let our heads drop after their goal, and Fondop was unlucky to not score from an Ogle long throw (keep faith with them, they’re not shit, we’re creating chances from them) but couldn’t keep his header down.
Mikey finally got his reward when he got on the end of a diagonal ball from Leake. He showed great strength to hold the defender off once again and finished clinically to put us level. “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it leads only to evil. For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.” (Psalms 37:7-9)
Both teams had chances late on in the game, with Hudson making a couple of good saves, but it was foretold in the scripture that Fondop would score twice in the second half. And by ‘the scripture’, I mean a message from Mikey’s fiancée.
Sure enough, in the 92nd minute, Pett delivered a great ball in from a free kick, new boy Vimal Yoganathan headed the ball down, and, after a goalmouth scramble, God’s number 9 poked the ball home to win us all three points. “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial.” (James 1:12)
And with that, at the fourth time of asking, we finally beat a team whose club was formed the year that Kylie Minogue released her debut album. Hallelujah!
If you needed any further proof of what a great man Karl Michael Fondop-Talum is: after holding up a scarf at the end of the game, he tracked down Danny Bolton, whose scarf it was, and returned it to him, laundered. What an absolute star.
Mellon was keen to stress after the game that “we haven’t played poorly” in recent games (I respectfully disagree Michael) and that he thought we played better at Gateshead than at Fylde, which was probably right. He also passed his thoughts and best wishes on to the fan who took ill during the game, and everyone at Oldham Fan Media wishes them a speedy recovery. Rossiter was endearingly chirpy post-match, singing Fondop’s praises, and looking forward to the Rochdale game: “can’t wait for Tuesday, we go again.”
📸 Oldham Athletic. That feeling when the Mitsubishis kick in.
I’ll be honest, I could wait for Tuesday. I wasn’t at all confident that we’d get a result. And it was at Spotland, so I wasn’t at all confident they’d get the game on. Happily, I was wrong on both counts.
There was heavy rain forecast for last Tuesday, and, given that Rochdale’s pitch drainage system is allegedly clogged up with sand, we feared the worst. In the end, there was only about 20 minutes of heavy rain and about an hour of drizzle, and if you’re a supposedly professional football club based in East Lancashire and you can’t cope with that, just fold.
Passing Boundary Park, we saw a player heading in. “Is that Worthington? Nah, not ginger enough. Oh I don’t bloody know who it is, we’ve signed about 27 players in about a week.” Turns out it was yet another new signing, and yet another midfielder. Am I right in thinking Joe Pritchard played against us for Accrington Stanley and played pretty well? He went straight into the matchday squad and was named on the bench.
An unfortunate glaring omission from the squad was Manny Monthe, and it sounds like we might not be seeing him or Charsley again this season, which is gutting. Charsley looked very promising at the start of the season, and there’s a strong argument for Monthe having been our best player. Best of luck to both of them, hope they’re on the mend soon.
Dale missed two sitters in the first five minutes, and it looked like it could be a tough night. We soon got our arse into gear, thankfully, and Waters was unlucky to not score when Fondop’s shot was saved and rebounded to him.
There was only ever going to be one player opening the scoring, though, wasn’t there? A corner was half-cleared and the ball fell to Pett, who, once again, delivered a peach of a cross into the box, where Fondop rose as if borne on the wings of the Archangel Michael and buried a bullet of a header at the far post. “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise.” (Daniel 12:1)
God’s number 9 was superb again, battling and harassing their players all night, but also doing more than his fair share at the back. Caprice was MOTM for me – he had their full back on toast, but, like Fondop, he put in a hell of a shift defensively. Him chasing down a Rochdale player on the break that it looked like he had no chance of catching and shielding the ball out for a free kick was one of the biggest cheers of the night.
📸 Oldham Athletic
It was never going to be a classic game on that sandpit of a pitch, but it was all the more gratifying that we played the conditions better than the home team did. The whole back 3 played superb (Leake did a great job of switching position and deputising for Monthe); the midfield looks like it’s starting to gel, with Pett and Rossiter (who was a little terrier) forming a promising partnership; and Waters looks like a great foil for Fondop, he didn’t stop running all night and it’s a shame he didn’t get the goal his performance deserved.
Hell, even Josh Kay (who’s had a tough few games) gave us all some entertainment when he came on in the 80th minute and pretty much immediately got booked for clattering Hogan. I half expected him to run to the Willbutts Lane stand and scream “NOW WILL YOU LOVE ME?”
The atmosphere was absolutely bouncing, something that Mellon commented on after the game. He might have been the happiest I’ve ever seen him at full time. It’s utterly delightful how much Fondop is loving life right now, and he adores his song (the Fondop Again Ole Ole one – can we stick to that and He’s God’s Number Nine and not the other icky one?).
And it turns out it’s OK to post videos of the changing room on Instagram when they’re as wholesome as this.
I don’t want to talk about the silly dickheads who were kicking off after the game, I’m sure karma will take care of them. It was a cracking night and I want to focus on that. The Cemetery pub was pretty lively after the game. We were careful to not wear colours in case they weren’t letting away fans in, but not everyone was so discreet. Someone put Mouldy Old Dough on the jukebox and loads of people sang along. Yes, it is indeed possible to sing along to an instrumental.
Obviously, Rochdale are the team we want to beat more than most, but there was more at stake on Tuesday than El Crapico bragging rights. The three points meant we finally moved up to 4th place, 9 points clear of Rochdale. They’ve got three games in hand but there’s every chance they’ll do a Halifax and have to play 5 games in the last week of the season.
Our next three games are against Solihull, Altrincham and Sutton. That’s the teams in 9th, 8th and 10th place respectively in the league. We’ve got a golden opportunity to put some distance between us and the chasing pack and consolidate our position in the play off places. And who knows, if we do that, maybe we can kick on and get HMS Piss the League back on course. Getting carried away? Me? The person who lumped on us to win the league the day after the Tranmere game? You betcha.
Safe journey if you’re off to the West Midlands today. I might ask Mikey to pray for those of us having to navigate Birmingham New Street station. May God be with us. And, more importantly, with him. KTMFF.
📸 Shirt_Disciple / Thomas Lee Stacey / Raphael Urbino
Written by Arlene Finnigan
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