The Opponent: Oldham Athletic
So we move on from a morgue-like County Ground to the glamorous North West of England in search of an immediate bounce back from what was a pretty miserable night at home on Tuesday. From my lofty position in The Town End I get to see all sorts of random people behaviour, and the behaviour of a few several nights back was beyond cringeworthy. “Fucking hell Ward you are shit”, “Do something with it Pritchard you useless cunt”, just some of the absurd remarks from just one person. This same person spent 2 years detesting Alan McCormack, no idea why, and with hindsight, perhaps he had a point, but seriously? You know who you are Kojak, he likes to shave his hair off to disguise the fact he is pushing 60, others on ‘the left side’ may know who I am referring too. I only have 3 words for him, PERSPECTIVE you cunt.
Some 7 miles north of Manchester, elevated within The Pennines and lying between the Rivers Irk and Medlock is the location of today’s opponent, Oldham. Many useless facts are available when it comes to Oldham so we will only focus on the important ones. Yates Wine Lodge, home of many a fond memory for many, was founded in Oldham in 1884 by Peter and Simon Yates. The tubular bandage was invented and developed in Oldham in 1961. That "vital contribution to advancing medical science" resulted from a collaboration between local firm Seton and a cotton manufacturer in the town. Some of Oldham’s more famous folk include cigar chomper, Winston Churchill, comedy, er, legends, Cannon and Ball, Take That dwarf Mark Owen, Funny man Eric Sykes, The man who loves shoving his hand up puppets poopers, Philip Schofield, and not forgetting, Sunita from Coronation Street.
The Last Time We Met Away – Back in December of last year we took all 3 points back from Boundary Park with 2 goals from Rafa De Vita in front of a whopping 3’345 people!
They have served us both – David Down, Hasney Aljokefree, Adam Rooney, Sam Parkin, Fraser Digby, Don Heath, Paul Edwards, Leon Clarke, Tom Devlin, Andy Todd
Where the opposition gather – http://www.owtb.co.uk/index.php/forum/1-the-terraces-latics-forum/Oldham Last 6 – LDLDWWL (Currently 19th on 11 points)
The Odds – Oldham 15/8 Draw 12/5 Swindon 8/5 Let’s hope we can get that all important first goal today and my pittance is likely to be wedged on Ryan Mason at 10/1 with Sky Bet. It must be said this seems a much better bet than the 20/1 being offered on Alan Navarro.
The Son Says – 2-0 Victory. It seems to be his stock answer when he seems a little unsure.
The Prediction – We will bounce back impressively after Tuesday night’s horror show and pick up a hard fought 2-1 victory with goals from Ryan Mason and Nile Ranger, with a crowd of 3’988 and 299 from Swindon.
And Finally – There are claims that Oldham was the birthplace of the first chip shop. The sometimes disputed claim of trade in deep-fried chipped potatoes is said to have been started in around 1858–60 from an outlet owned by a John Lees, on what is the present site of Oldham's Tommyfield Market. In 1900 Oldham had the highest concentration of chip shops in the country with one chippy for every 400 people!
