The Vimal of the species is more deadly

What an exciting week for Oldham Athletic Football Club! And what a pity this blog is mostly about El Crapico!

It was a bumper crowd, as it should be for a derby. We had the pre-match entertainment of watching GMP’s cavalry escorting the Rochdale ‘firm’ down our road. A couple of them took great pride in putting their little stickers on the lamp posts. Aw, bless. I felt like going and asking them if they’d like some felt tip pens to do some colouring in as well.

We all hoped that, for once, our players wouldn’t shit themselves in front of a big crowd, and it started brightly for, like, five minutes. Waters nicked the ball off their number 26 after he tried to block Kitching’s ball forward, and it could have been a very different day if wee Billy hadn’t put his shot wide.

And then we made a cat’s arse of defending a long throw, yet again, and Bird hit something of a thunderbastard to put Rochdale 1-0 up. Sigh.

📸 DY Sporting

It would have been better if he hadn’t been such a shitbag celebrating it; it would have been better if some of our fans hadn’t risen to the bait and thrown stuff at him. Shout out to whoever was sat behind us and thought they could throw their drink onto the pitch and just showered everyone in front of them instead. You were in Row T, you daft fucker. You’re not Steve Backley or Fatima Whitbread.

With grim predictability, we then retreated into ourselves and created very little for the rest of the half. We didn’t do this before Christmas, we were resilient and didn’t let our heads drop if we conceded. What’s changed?

The opening 45 minutes was summed up by the corner we had just before half-time, which we made an utter hash of and Rochdale hit us on the break. It took a great last-ditch tackle in the box by Conlon to get us out of trouble. Christ. What a load of shite.

At half-time, Andy tried to convince me that Gracie Fields was actually a Latics fan and one of her songs contained the line ‘Come on Oldham’. These early kick-offs really are a killer, aren’t they? Imagine what delirious bollocks he would have been coming out with if we’d gone to the Rifle when it opened at 10am.

Changes were desperately needed, and we brought Hobson and Harratt on for Pett (who clearly hadn’t recovered from being kicked in the groin the previous Tuesday) and Ogle and switched to 3-4-3. Three strikers on the pitch! Ambassador, you are spoiling us.

It was better, and we were more attacking, but Rochdale were still dangerous on the break and Donaghy had to make several good saves. Uchegbulam came on for Waters, and I thought he did well once he gained the confidence to run at their defenders and take them on.

The assistant referee was comically bad. At one point he flagged Harratt for offside when he hadn’t touched the ball and left it for Uchegbulam, the referee ignored him, then changed his mind when Uchegbulam stopped because he saw the flag go up. Embarrassing.

Norwood came on for Fondop (who has more than earned a rest), and Yoganathan came on for Conlon. Norwood’s contribution mainly consisted of a shot from distance at their keeper, and giving Uchegbulam an unjustified bollocking. Thanks for that, James.

Yoganathan had somewhat more impact. Uchegbulam put a dangerous cross into the box, Rochdale attempted to clear it, and Yoganathan’s looping header pulled us level. Get in. I was made up for him, he so deserved it.

📸 Phill Smith

It felt like the momentum was with us then, and we went for it in injury time. We were all up in arms at the referee blowing for full time when we were attacking – slightly short of the signalled 5 minutes – but, y’know, we did have 90 minutes to score before then, so maybe we can’t feel too hard done to.

Mellon spoke about being disappointed with the first half, and said he had to remind the players of their roles and responsibilities at half time. He was full of praise for Yoganathan – “exceptional…I’m delighted for him” – and quite right too. Obviously he’s now away with Wales U19s and not available for us. Fuck our luck.

📸 Phill Smith

It sounds like Ogle’s done his calf again, and Mellon confirmed that Pett was struggling, having not trained since Tuesday, but he was desperate to play today – “wee bit too brave for his own good”. Very noble of him, but not actually helpful.

It’s disappointing that we didn’t do the double over Rochdale, but it was probably a better point for us than for them. And they still haven’t beaten us in 9 years. Which is nice.

To compound Micky Mellon’s disappointment, the other big derby of the weekend finished 3-2 to Rangers, blowing the Scottish title race wide open. The Rangers should probably give Barry Ferguson a 10 year contract off the back of that.

Given the somewhat underwhelming performance of the men on Saturday, there definitely should have been more of a spotlight on the amazing 9 (NINE) - 0 victory of the women vs Chorlton on Sunday. Melody Seagrave got a hat-trick, Lacey Webb got a brace, and Chelsea Cook, Ruby Crossman, Caitlin Knowles and Kady Powers also got on the scoresheet. Brilliant effort, well done girls.

The big news of the week, of course, was off the pitch. On Monday, the £70m SportsTown project was unveiled, with plans to develop sports, health and education facilities in and around Boundary Park. You’ll probably all read more about it than I have, I haven’t had time to look at the finer details, but it sounds exciting. Obviously there have been planned developments that haven’t worked out before, and there always needs to be scrutiny and questions asked when public money is being spent on this scale, but it sounds like it could be brilliant for both the town and the club. And Barry Owen has spent all week raging about it, so I’m going to assume it’s one of the best things to ever happen in the borough.

Yes, we’re all desperate for success on the pitch, and God knows we’ve waited long enough for it. But criticising the SportsTown project and saying ‘we should be focusing on promotion instead’ is short-sighted. This is a massive collaborative project that multiple organisations have been working on for two and a half years. Are we really supposed to say to the council and the rugby club “sorry lads, tell the government to give that £5m from the Community Regeneration Fund back to the treasury. We’re gonna have to put the whole thing on ice because we’re only 4th in the league.” Micky Mellon is not drawing up the plans for the building work or looking for investment, and Darren Royle is not taking training or picking the team.

Player wise, Scott Moloney has gone out on loan to Rushall Olympic, and Otis Khan has gone on loan to Yeovil. Good luck to them both. If we don’t see Goatis again – as I suspect we won’t – we’ll always remember his winner at Ebbsfleet, and this utterly unhinged meme by his superfan TheReal_AQ.

The future’s looking bright off the pitch, and, thanks to all the teams around us shitting their pants as badly as we have, we’re still 4th in the league. Today we face Halifax, and the last we played them at Boundary Park, we won 4-2 and Billy Waters scored. Same again please lads. KTMFF.

Written by Arlene Finnigan