Home again, home again

You may recall that, when football came home in 2022, it was 3 days after the Rothwells’ takeover of our club was confirmed. “Imagine getting our Oldham back and football coming home in the same week.” Well imagine Oldham winning our first trophy in 34 years and England winning their first trophy on foreign soil in the same summer.

Imagine.

Remember which dickhead said “If we’re brutally realistic, Spain are probably going to win it”? Yep, this dickhead. The same one who said “I don’t know what the answer is in the short term, but Micky Mellon is not getting us out of this league”. This is the summer of me being proven wildly spectacularly wrong, and it is the best summer ever.

The starting line-up for the final was unchanged other than Jess Carter coming in for Esme Morgan. I didn’t think that was a good idea, but I think we’re establishing that the theme of this blog is that I am a dickhead.

I was shitting it going into this game, and I thought Spain would batter us, so it was a pleasant surprise that we started reasonably well. We had a great chance 3 minutes in, with Russo making a great run, her shot was saved, and it fell to James who couldn’t put it away.

Alas, the opening goal for Spain had been coming. Ona Batlle, one of the best players in the world, had too much space, and played a great cross in for Caldentey, whose header gave Hampton no chance.

📷 Matthew Childs

After that, I feared the game was going exactly how I expected it to. Spain were well on top, England were having to defend deep, and it was going exactly how I feared.

Playing Lauren James from the start was a gamble, after she’d been subbed at HT in the Italy game with an ankle injury, and it backfired. 40 minutes in, after she’d been struggling all game, she came off for Chloe Kelly. Obviously, I always want to see Kelly come on, but ideally not in these circumstances.

We were visibly better as soon as Kelly came on, getting forward more. We were defending deep early in the second half, but it felt… different. It certainly felt different 57 minutes in, when Chloe Kelly (who else?) made a great run down the left, crossed it into the box, and Russo levelled with a lovely looping header. Game on.

📷 Sébastien Bozon

We had more possession, we were getting forward more. Could we actually do it? Could we actually beat the world champions? We nearly took the lead through (of course) Kelly, after Toone broke forward and played the ball out wide to her on the left, but the keeper just about saved her shot at full stretch.

The saviour of the nation, Agyemang, was thankfully given more time, and came on for Russo 70 minutes in. Spain were starting to dominate possession again, and Agyemang got stuck in defensively. The defence needed the help, with Bronze looking knackered. Mead came on for Toone late on, but neither team could get the crucial goal, and it was extra time again, ole ole.

Once again, Spain put us under pressure, and Hampton had plenty to do, but commanded her box well. Another 30 minutes was clearly the last thing Bronze needed, and she should have been subbed after putting the ball out herself for a Spain throw-in so that she could get treatment from the physio, but she insisted on carrying on. Spain very nearly scored in the 105th minute, with the ball being played right across the face of goal, but no-one could put it away. They were also starting to throw themselves to the floor, and the referee kept falling for it.

Charles came on for Bronze, who by now could barely move, for the last 15 minutes. It was all getting a bit desperate, with Hampton making some great saves, Pina hitting it just wide, and Paralluelo swinging at the ball and missing it from a corner. Clinton came on for Stanway in the 115th minute, with fresh legs being very much needed.

The referee was by now really pissing me off. There was a blatant, cynical foul on Agyemang in the centre circle as we tried to hit Spain on the break…. so the referee awarded Spain a free kick. Agyemang reminds me of Fondop in more ways than one.

Jess Carter has had a difficult tournament, both on and off the pitch, so she deserves credit for keeping us in the game in the last minutes, making a great run back to track Bonmati (who, let’s be honest, you’d expect to win that race), and hit the ball off her to put it out for a goal kick.

Maybe we shouldn’t have absolutely dreaded penalties. It’s not a lottery, it’s a skill, and Sarina Wiegman’s England team are very good at them. Yes, we all remember the Sweden game, but we’ve never lost a shootout under Wiegman. Still. Fucking hell. My nerves.

It didn’t settle them when Mead smashed in the first penalty, despite slipping while hitting it, only to be ordered to re-take it because the referee deemed that she’d touched the ball twice. Now you’re REALLY pissing me off. Mead put her second effort the same way, and the keeper saved it.

📷 Getty Images

Guijarro put her shot straight down the middle to give Spain the advantage. Greenwood put hers low and to the right into the back of the net. Caldentay stepped up, and God bless her, Hampton saved it. Niamh Charles’ shot just to the left went in, then it was Bonmati’s turn. She’s the best player in the world, she’s definitely scoring, right? Guess again dickhead, Hampton saved that one as well.

📷 Michael Probst

Williamson, as ever leading by example, took the fourth penalty, hit it to the right, and it was saved. Oh God I was gutted for her. Paralluelo was up next… and hit it wide. We were one kick away from bringing football home again.

If there’s one player in the entire world who you’d want taking that 5th penalty to win the trophy, it’s Chloe Kelly. Of course it’s Chloe Kelly. It was always going to be Chloe Kelly. She did her iconic hop, ran up, and absolutely fucking smashed it in. The keeper went the right way, but it was too hard, too high, too good. England are champions of Europe, again. Get the fuck in.

📷Florencia Tan Jun

There are so many individual stories in this team. Hampton, under huge pressure to fill Mary Earps’ shoes, was told she could never be a keeper because she has an eye condition called strabismus that affects your depth perception. Ella Toone was playing in her first final since her dad died. It seems obvious now that Kelly was always going to be the hero, but in January, when she wasn’t playing for Man City, it looked like she wasn’t going to make the squad. I have nothing but respect for her saying “Thanks to everyone who wrote me off, I’m grateful” in the post-match presser, which was a very eloquent way of rewording “FUCK YOU GARETH TAYLOR AGGGGGGGGHHH”.

After the game, Lucy Bronze – who played 120 minutes in the other two knockout games and played most of the final – revealed that she had played the entire tournament with a fractured tibia. And during the final, she hurt her knee on the other leg. She played the whole tournament with a broken fucking leg! How…. seriously, just how? She is not built like the rest of us. She is one of the greatest players of all time, and what she has done for England at this Euros is one of the greatest achievements in the history of sport. Lucia Roberta Tough Bronze, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.

📷 Matthias Hangst

Incidentally, the keeper who was carrying her round the pitch during the post-match celebrations, Anna Moorhouse, is from Oldham, and played for us for a bit as a kid. Get down to see our women’s team this season. You never know where they might end up in the future. Lucy Bronze replied to her Instagram post after the game saying, ‘My hero’. Imagine how immense you must be to be Lucy Bronze’s hero.

This team stands on the shoulders of giants, and I must take the opportunity to highlight a hero from my hometown. I was aware, as a kid in Prescot, of a very good coach called Sylvia Gore. It is a damning indictment of how undervalued women’s football has been historically that I didn’t know, until the 2023 Women’s World Cup, that Sylvia Gore scored the first goal for an officially recognised England women’s team, and she went to the same school that I went to. Why was there not a blue plaque or something at St Edmund Arrowsmith school in Whiston when I was there?

Thank you, Sylvia. Thank you for walking the hard yards, so that these Lionesses could run.

This England team are a collection of extraordinary individual players, but they are so much more than the sum of their parts. You don’t win a European championship with a keeper with wonky eyes and a right-back with a broken leg without having an amazing team spirit. Their resilience and togetherness and determination has been a joy to watch, and I very much hope they’re now in the middle of the mother of all benders.

Oldham are back where they belong in the Football League, and football’s come home again. It’s been a hell of a summer, hasn’t it? Decades of hurt never stopped us dreaming. KTMFF.

📷 Lionesses

Written by Arlene Finnigan