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You scumbag, you maggot, cheers to Kian Harratt
- Arlene Finnigan
- Dec 25, 2025
- 10 min read
Welcome to my Christmas blog. I’d like to thank you for the year. And what a year it’s been.
It didn’t start too well. It had all looked so promising before last Christmas. Stones and Norwood looked like they’d been playing up front together forever, we’d had three fantastic performances in the FA Cup and I was so convinced that we’d win the league that I stuck £50 on it (well, £25 each way, but still). And then the York game on Boxing Day – which we were all fully confident that we were going to win – got called off due to fog, and everything seemed to go to shit.
January was utterly miserable. We didn’t win a game all month; talismanic midfielder Sam Clucas went to Lincoln and York paid Wigan silly money for Josh Stones, which Matt Uggla announced by tweeting ‘Never fall in love with a loan player’, an incredibly clever and witty message that could not possibly come back to bite him on the bellend. When York beat us 2-0 in the rearranged fixture, Stones’ anonymous cameo was the nearest thing to a positive that we could claim.
February was somewhat better, starting with three away wins in a row, including a very enjoyable 1-0 win on Rochdale’s terrible pitch, but our awful home form continued. A sickeningly timid 1-0 defeat at home to Maidenhead, who went on to be relegated to the National League South, was one of the low points, not just of the season, but of our entire time in the National League. Mellon shouting “who are you talking to, you prick?” at Dagenham and Redbridge was piss funny, but it also felt like the wheels were coming off.
March saw me questioning my decision to bet on us to win the league, our ability to even make the play-offs, and a lot of my life choices. Whether or not Mark Shelton’s mum sells Avon, he had the last laugh in the 3-0 defeat at home to the eventual champions. Travelling to Boston on a Tuesday night to watch us grind out a 0-0 draw with Fondop playing up front on his own and us failing to properly utilise Uchegbulam or Yoganathan, two of the few players who looked like they could offer an attacking threat, remains one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. I don’t want to talk about Tamworth away, but we definitely should have gone to visit the castle instead.
We finally got our first home win of 2025 on the obscenely late date of March 11th, beating Eastleigh 1-0. Yoganathan rescued a point at home in the 1-1 draw v Rochdale, and we hoped we might have turned a corner when we beat Halifax 2-0, with new boy Kian Harratt opening the scoring. Having battered them 4-2 in the FA Cup earlier in the season, Halifax were probably relieved that they wouldn’t have to visit Boundary Park again. Or so they thought.
That couldn’t last, naturally, and we lost 1-0 in a dismal performance at Southend. We started badly and conceded an early goal, and if you concede an early goal to Southend, there’s no coming back from that. Is there?
In April, it was starting to look like we were doing our best to throw any chance of promotion away, and plenty of us were starting to lose the faith. “I don’t know what the answer is in the short term, but Micky Mellon is not getting us out of this league.” Yes, I’m a dickhead, but I was far from the only one saying it, and plenty of people were shouting it louder than me. We are ALL dickheads.
After that crap performance at Yeovil, we didn’t exactly build momentum, but we put together enough of a run to stumble into the play-offs. Caprice doing his hamstring at York was gutting, and bringing Raglan on for him seemed like classic dinosaur Mellonball tactics, but it turned out to be a masterstroke. Raglan scored the equaliser, and Josh Stones came on as a sub to spend the last half hour of the match in his back pocket. And then we lost to Forest Green, and it felt like the bubble bursting, yet again.
It's mental how much beating an already-relegated Ebbsfleet team, who hadn’t won away all season, lifted Boundary Park. Ebbsfleet were awful, really awful; we missed a hatful of chances and didn’t make certain of the win until Garner got our second goal in the 86th minute. And yet, the players celebrated like we were on our way to the Football League, and so did we. You could feel that there was a tangible shift, that we’d collectively decided, as a team, as a fanbase, as a club: “fuck it, what’s gone has gone. We’re three games away from promotion. Let’s just fucking go for it.”
But no-one – no-one – could have predicted what happened next.
I’ve been going to Boundary Park for a good few decades now, and I have never experienced an atmosphere like the Halifax play-off game. It was the first time I’ve been in the hospitality for a match, and when we came out into the Joe Royle stand, it hit you in the face – the buzz, the noise, the unnerving, unfamiliar positivity. And then I saw the tifo, and genuinely gasped.
📸 Oldham Athletic
It worked. Halifax were like rabbits in the headlights – Yorkshire Post reporter Leon Wobschall described them as “palpably struggling to cope with this insane home atmosphere” – and we were 3-0 up inside 12 mad minutes. At half-time everyone was just laughing in disbelief. Where the hell had this attacking masterclass come from? Had we hit a run of form we couldn’t have dreamed of after that Yeovil game at exactly the right time? When Pritchard put us 4-0 up with the best finish of the night, the answer appeared to be yes.
A month earlier, I’d told Andy “You know what, I half hope we don’t make the play-offs, we’ll play like shit in them as well, I just want this season to be over”. In case we hadn’t already established this fact, I am a dickhead. Never mind Dickhead Dean. It’s me, hi, I’m the dickhead, it’s me.
There’s nothing like needing to email your boss asking for two days off at short notice to go to a play-off semi-final to get you out of bed for work when you’re hungover. Miraculously, we were among the lucky few to get tickets for the York game, and once again, the game was probably won before kick-off, with 1500 Oldham fans representing everyone back home and easily out-singing the home support.
York did not play like a team that finished twenty-three points ahead of us and had home advantage. We absolutely did not play like underdogs. We battered them. Their keeper didn’t need to gift us that first goal, but Garner accepted it gratefully. The goal was set up by Yoganathan, who put us 2-0 up with a great goal three minutes into the second half. Never fall in love with a loan player? Hahahahahaha. Two minutes later, Pritchard made it 3-0, all hell broke loose, and the remainder of the game was basically a victory parade on York’s pitch.
Our first Wembley final in thirty-five years. Future Fucking Ticketing and the National League – who were presumably expecting a York v Forest Green final when they planned to only open the lower tier at Wembley, and were caught out by the two best-supported teams in the division making it instead – contrived to make getting there more stressful than it needed to be, and full credit to our ticket office staff for mitigating their bullshit.
What a day it was. The weather was glorious, the Green Man was bouncing before the game, everyone was absolutely buzzing. So Monthe putting the ball into his own net 5 minutes in was quite the kick in the minge.
Southend were the one opponents I didn’t want. They’ve been on a similar journey to us, they were as desperate to get back into the Football League as we were, and they showed huge character and grit and resilience to get to Wembley. While we steamrollered Halifax and York, they had to come from behind to beat both Rochdale and Forest Green, winning their semi-final on penalties.
We were both in unchartered territory, then. They’d been behind for most of their two previous play-off games; we hadn’t conceded a goal in either of ours. It needed someone with solid steel balls to step up and take the penalty to draw us level, in front of a record crowd of 52115. But no-one doubted Joe Garner for a second, did they?
📸 Oldham Athletic
Neither team could break the deadlock in normal time, with Norwood having an air shot in the 95th minute. When we conceded again a minute into extra time, I really thought it wasn’t going to be our day. We’d come so far, but we’d missed some great chances, and we had to prepare ourselves for heartbreak, again.
And then Jesurun Uchegbulam pinged a long ball forward to James Norwood, who scored the greatest goal Wembley has ever seen. And two minutes later, Kian Harratt swung the ball into the box from the right, it evaded everyone and bounced into the net, and 112 minutes into the game, we were in front for the first time.
📸 Oldham Athletic
The entire bench piled onto the pitch, pandemonium ensued, and, after resigning ourselves to the familiar crushing feeling of defeat, it was time to start dreaming again.
And then, after what felt like forever but was less than a quarter of an hour (“FOUR MINUTES? WHERE’S HE GOT FOUR MINUTES FROM?! Oh yeah from the entire squad and staff running around celebrating Harratt’s goal”), but was also in reality thirty-four long years, the words CONGRATULATIONS OLDHAM ATHLETIC beamed out around Wembley, we finally had a trophy to lift, and our exile in the National League was over.
It was chaos. It was joyous. It was vindication. It was Oh Micky You’re So Fine and Frank and Judith dancing on the pitch to We Are The Champions. Never mind that we finished twenty-nine points behind the actual champions. That didn’t matter. We’d come back from rock bottom, we were on our way to the Football League, and it was the best day ever.
England women won their first Euros three days after the Rothwells were unveiled as our new owners, so it felt somewhat fitting that they won their second in the same summer that we won our first trophy in 34 years. I fully expected the first Euros win; I definitely didn’t expect the second. I expected Spain to win it, as did most people.
I certainly didn’t expect England to win it when they were 2-0 down v Sweden in the 79th minute of the quarter final. I definitely didn’t think it was coming home when they were 1-0 down v Italy in the 96th minute of the semi-final. But they battled, they never gave up, they showed incredible determination and spirit and tenacity. And Chloe Kelly is as good at penalties as Joe Garner is. This is England.
📸 Getty Images
And to top it all off, Royton Cricket Club won the first major cup in their 150 year history, beating Prestwich to win the Derek Kay Cup. And Pete Wild read the Beyond the Boundary Park Alert System fanzine on the bus home. It really was the best summer ever.
We parted company with a number of our promotion heroes, including James Norwood and Charlie Raglan. Good luck to them all, we’ll always be grateful, and they’ll always be welcome at Boundary Park. Unless Norwood scores against us for Fleetwood and celebrates, the little shit.
Our triumphant return to the Football League has been, let’s be honest, a little patchy. It was a little disappointing that our first League game in three years was at the Milton Keynes Franchisedome, but we held our own with one of the favourites for promotion and got a 0-0 draw. It was a bit mean of the League to pick this year to introduce a preliminary round to the League Cup, and our woeful performance at Accrington (the first of two, unfortunately) meant that we’ll have to wait another year to play in the first round.
Over the course of the transfer window, Micky Mellon strengthened our squad by signing a load of players who’ve played for him before, and his own son. Better the devil you know, I guess. Young Michael’s done a lot to make his dad proud, to be fair. That overhead kick v Northampton certainly was something, wasn’t it?
We’ve had some great away days (Cambridge, Cheltenham, Harrogate) and some shite ones (Notts County, Salford, Accrington – twice). This team is very much a work in progress, but we’ve come a long way from playing one up front against Boston and Dorking. And battering Tranmere last Saturday was the perfect Christmas present – more on that in tomorrow’s matchday blog.
If the men’s team is a work in progress, then huge credit has to be paid to how far the women’s team have come, with their current incarnation having only been launched in 2024. There are huge challenges in grassroots women’s football, and their season has once again been disrupted with games being postponed, but they currently sit 4th in the league, having signed off for Christmas with a 4-0 win over Lymm Rovers. Their 12 [TWELVE] – 2 victory over Westbury Sports Club in the Open Age Challenge Cup in November was a hell of a statement of intent. And that purple shirt is lush. Onwards and upwards, girls.
📸 Steve Peacock
Off the pitch, the club is unrecognisable from the shitshow it was three and a half years ago. Progress is being made with Sportstown; the redevelopment of Little Wembley is coming along nicely (we went for a walk past yesterday, and they were putting the pitch down); the club took on board criticism of the new home shirt and amended it, when quite frankly I would have told you all to suck it up and fuck off; and Ryan Reynolds told the world that Frank Rothwell is sexier than David Beckham. Which was weird, but made us strangely proud.
Not as proud as we should be today, as the club is opening the fans’ bar to ensure that no-one locally has to spend Christmas Day alone. It’s open from 12:45pm, there’s free food and drink, they’re showing the play-off final, and they’ve even helpfully listed the time the goals will be shown in the itinerary. OAFC Veterans, Andy’s Man Club, and the man himself, Frank Rothwell OBE, will all be in attendance. Mes Que un Club.
Four years ago, the board were banning supporters for ‘promoting dislike of the club’. A year ago, we lost to Stockton on a sixth form college pitch. It’s been far from plain sailing, but my God, this year’s been a huge step forward. Happy Christmas, Latics. We built our dreams around you.
Written by Arlene Finnigan
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