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It's not time to make a change
- Arlene Finnigan
- 4 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Well, that was more like it, wasn’t it? Amazing how taking your chances and starting on the front foot makes for a totally different game.
Mellon snr spoke about how important the FA Cup is to him, and he did indeed treat it with the respect it deserves, naming an unchanged line-up. No tinkering, no messing about.
It was great to meet up with Tom and Ed from Terrace Edition before the game. Tom’s a Northampton fan, Ed’s a Latics fan, and Tom got some cracking photos around Boundary Park. While we were debating whether we had time for another drink in the Rifle Range before the match, me and Andy joked that OASIS rules state that you shouldn’t be in the ground until at least five minutes into the game. I’m very glad that we disregarded the regulations of Oldham Athletic’s oldest and most prestigious supporter group.
📸 Tom Reed
Boundary Park really was very photogenic last Saturday. At the end of the rainbow, a pot of GOALS, amirite? (No, YOU fuck off.)
We’ve been guilty of both starting games poorly and of not taking our chances this season. We certainly put that right v Northampton. In the third minute, Pett crossed the ball into the box from the right, the Cobblers defender’s attempt to head it clear laid it off to Mellon jnr, and he had the fucking audacity to execute an overhead kick that sent the ball past the stunned keeper. And now Ricky Villa’s winning goal v Man City in the 1981 final replay is only the second greatest ever goal to be scored in the FA Cup. (It was, entirely correctly, voted the goal of the round.)
Give Phill Smith the World Sports Photography award now
A minute later, it was 2-0. Hudson launched a long ball forward, Garner headed it into the box, and young Michael calmly put it past the keeper from a tight angle with a chip that his hero, Henrik Larsson, would be proud of. This is how you start a game. This is what good looks like.
I really thought Mellon jnr was going to get a hat-trick inside the first 10 minutes, and I was a bit put out that we had to wait. Fitzsimons made a decent save from his shot from the right side of the box 18 minutes in and also save Hannant’s shot from the rebound. Garner had a few shots saved too, and him and young Michael are looking like a very promising partnership.
I’m delighted to say that I did manage to get back to my seat from the bar in time to see the hat-trick be completed. I just missed Hammond’s goal being disallowed for kicking the ball out of the keeper’s hands. I believe Garner had a word or two to say about that. It didn’t matter a couple of minutes later, when Garner played the ball to Hammond, Fitzsimons completely misjudged it and came running out of his box, and Hammond squared the ball for young Michael to slot it into the empty net. Piece of piss.
Northampton’s frustration was starting to show, and shortly after, Guinness-Walker took a very ill-advised swing at Garner, and was possibly lucky to only get a yellow card, and to not get his head punched off. Kai Payne came on for Woods on 55 minutes, and it took a good five minutes for the people who were singing “he threw a chair, who gives a fuck” to realise that it wasn’t Kian Harratt.
After Garner picked up his customary booking 71 minutes in, and with young Michael having already claimed the match ball, it made sense to bring the front two off for Fondop and Drummond. Given how well we were playing and how comfortably we were dominating the game, I was so hoping it was going to be Drummond’s day, but it wasn’t to be. He was a handful and made a nuisance of himself, as he usually does.
Daniels had to come off injured for Will Sutton 83 minutes in, which wasn’t ideal and did seem to unsettle us a bit at the back. Quigley came on for Hammond at the same time, and there’s an argument for saying that Hammond was MOTM, if it hadn’t been for someone else getting a hat-trick and scoring a spectacular overhead kick.
Given how well we’d played, it was disappointing that we couldn’t hang on for a clean sheet. We didn’t deal with the ball bobbling around the 6 yard box and McGeehan got a consolation. It was all the more galling when I realised that the assist came from former Latic Tom Eaves, whose hair Wilfried Moimbe pulled in April 2018 to give Gillingham a 90th minute penalty when we’d been 1-0 up, which cost us 2 points and ultimately resulted in our relegation from League One. Nope, still not over it.
Where the fuck did nine minutes of stoppage time come from?! It was much nervier than it should have been after we’d been 3-0 up for 90 minutes, but thankfully we saw it out, and it was the happiest we’ve been leaving Boundary Park for a few weeks. And what a lovely sunset it was again.
📸 Tom Reed
Mellon snr was rightly delighted with the performance, the result, how we took our chances, and especially his boy’s “incredible finish” for the first goal of his hat-trick: “as a dad, it’s magnificent, isn’t it”. Awwww.
He also singled Hammond out for praise, in slightly bizarre and quite amusing fashion: “We’ve got Oli, who’s got great legs… I mean, football legs… so… he’s got nice legs as well”. Did not expect that, Micky. Was absolutely not prepared for that.
The spotlight was obviously on young Michael, and I loved how dry and funny his post-match interview was. When asked if his overhead kick was something he worked on in training, he replied “I don’t think you can work on it, because if you did it more than once, you’d break your back, wouldn’t you?”. Fair point. He said that Garner was “a pleasure to play with”, which shows, gave Hammond the credit for his 3rd goal, confirmed that he calls his dad ‘gaffer’ in training (I should think so too), and when asked what he was going to do with the match ball, said “I think my mum will be calling me in a minute, asking for it to go in my dad’s bar”. Well if he’s taking your match ball, I hope he bought you a McDonalds after the game, son.
Mellon jnr also talked about his disappointment when he made it to the third round of the FA Cup with Morecambe, only to get drawn away at Swansea, so fuck knows what his reaction was to us getting Milton Fucking Keynes away in the second round. I couldn’t be arsed going there at the start of the season when it was our first Football League game for three years, I sure as fuck won’t be going there three weeks before Christmas. Any nice local markets on that day?
I definitely can be arsed going to Harrogate today. It’s Andy’s birthday weekend, so we’re staying over. Just to clarify, no one at Oldham Fan Media got ringfenced tickets, and Darren Royle did not pay for our hotel. I just like being an arsehole on Twitter. It’s fun.
Have a great day out if you’re also making the trip to Yorkshire today. Have the Athleticos got any songs about pissing in their spring water prepared? Hope so. Hopefully Mellon snr sticks with the same team as last week if at all possible, and some more goals for Mellon jnr would be lovely. Into these spa nonces. KTMFF.
Written by Arlene Finnigan