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Bit deflating, last Saturday, wasn’t it? We’re Oldham fucking Athletic. We’re a footballing powerhouse. We were founder members of the Premier League. And we appear to be incapable of winning in a town where they prefer ice hockey and rugby union. Fuck’s sake.
However much their ground might be a grim reminder of where we are, Altrincham’s a cracking day out. I can highly recommend Kennedy’s Irish bar. I was on vodka, but I’m told the Guinness is excellent. (I resisted the urge to get 6 baby Guinnesses for £20 and neck the lot myself.) I initially thought the giant lit-up E was a nod to the Happy Mondays, then saw the table reservations. I hope Eileen had a lovely birthday.
We started the game brightly, and, despite the challenges of being a 5ft 1 woman on a packed non-league terrace, I was delighted that I managed to see the opening goal. Charsley – who impressed again – nicked the ball off Osborne and put him on his arse when he tried to win it back. He passed to Gardner, who squared it to Norwood, who was never going to miss from there.
We could easily have gone in 2-0 up at the break, when Charsley broke and made a good run down the middle late on in the half, and passed to Norwood, whose shot was cleared off the line. (I didn’t see that one.)
It would have been really, really nice if we could have carried that momentum on into the second half, wouldn’t it. But, alas… It made perfect sense to bring Norwood off for Fondop on the hour, although Norwood appeared to disagree and tried to do a Jude Bellingham and say ‘no that’s obviously a mistake’. Mellon said after the game that we looked solid defensively after the triple substitution on the hour; I’m not so sure, although Dolan looked promising again, and isn’t afraid to take on a man or three.
It was a soft free kick to Alty 69 (nice) minutes in, I didn’t think it was a foul by Monthe (and their players had been going down like sacks of shit), but what was even more soft was our defending from a set piece, again. It was a good delivery for Linney to equalise, but the marking in the box needed to be far better.
The main thing people are going to remember was Fondop’s miss in injury time, but let’s give credit where it was due, it was also Fondop who headed the ball out from under the crossbar from an Altrincham corner, it was Fondop who immediately got back into an attacking position, and it was Fondop who nicked the ball in the centre circle on the break to get a chance one-on-one with the keeper. Oh GOD, it would have been nice if he could have finished better after doing all the hard work right though. He works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he. Do I mean God or Fondop? I don’t know myself to be honest.
Another frustrating day out. But I had a fucking great parmigiana in Domus Italia afterwards, which pretty much made up for it. And, as I said while we were walking back to the pub, there’s always someone worse off, and it’s usually Everton. Snatching a defeat from the jaws of victory when you were 2-0 up at home in the 87th minute? Fucking HELL.
Mellon bemoaned our failure to take our chances again, saying we’ve been guilty of it for a few weeks now: “if you’re going to win games of football you can’t miss chances like that”. He stressed how much better we are than last year, saying we’re a “completely different animal”, and it was certainly better than the abject performance at Alty last season. It would have been a good point at a tough ground, if we hadn’t dropped points in our last two home games. There’s work to do.
It looks like the rumoured incoming strike partner for Norwood isn’t materialising, which is a real shame, so – for now at least – we’ll just have to piss with the cock we’ve got. I’m not 100% that playing one up front is our best option, and once again, refusing to play Reid seems odd. We’ll see, I guess.
On Sunday, we got to see that rarest of phenomena: a team playing at Boundary Park being presented with a trophy. Huge congratulations to the Roughyeds, who won League One at a canter. Sadly, we didn’t get to the ground early enough to see Tommy Cannon, but I’m pretty sure we heard him sound checking from our house about 10am. Being woken up by Tommy Cannon singing. What a way to start your Sunday.
📸 Dave Murgatroyd
It was a victory march of a performance, with Oldham battering Workington 56-0. One of the highlights was Mo Agoro flattening their full-back – honestly, this video doesn’t do justice to the noise it made, which Andy described as sounding “like Godzilla whacking an elephant with a shark”. I should get him to write the blog more often, he’s got a way with words.
Good luck to our new women’s team, who kick the season off tomorrow away against Mancunian Unity B. I’d love it if they played at least some games at Boundary Park, it’d be great to see our supporters get behind them.
Potentially, a tough test at home today. Can someone let Southend know that the M62 is shut between junctions 18-20, and, as much as I applaud their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, trains in this country are utterly shite? I should try and come up with a rail equivalent of HMS Piss The League, but I can’t be arsed. Let’s get the promotion push back on track (no you fuck off). KTMFF.
Written by Arlene Finnigan
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