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I nipped into town at dinner and popped into WhSmith as there's not alot else to do in Rochdale. I noticed Colin's book on the shelf so had a gander in the index for the bits about Latics. Not alot in a pretty heavy book. 4 pages or so.

 

The first part is when he was manager of Notts County and he mentions that something was said by some West Ham about how they are just in the back and here for the party, or words to that effect. He says it really riled him and before the game he laid into his players and demanded not to end the season with an anti climax and a whimper.

 

It worked and he goes on to mention how the entire ground is celebrating as the news that Wednesday are 2-1 up at Boundary Park and 'the title is won'. There's a big gasp as Oldham equalises before the ground once again erupts as all of Upton Park thinks the game at BP is over with word going round that the final whistle had indeed gone. Warnock congratulates the manager and gives a cheeky consolation about losing that day. Then he tells of the horror that was Upton Park as the ground became distraught at the shock news that the whistle had been for a penalty to Latics, it had been scored. The final whistle had gone and Oldham won the league. He said it was purely because of him that we won the league and that he's told Big Joe many times in the past that it's all because of him and that no other team bar his Notts County would have been West Ham at Upton Park that day. (having seen wednesday against us that very day, i'm pretty sure they would have)

 

In the next part. He mentions that he didnt have a good time at Oldham. He got on very well with Hardy and Alan had told him he would be getting an extended contract. He says it was the final game of the season away at Grimsby where he realised that wasnt to be true. He says how Jepson scored and he looked at our fans in his words 'going mental' and then to the directors box and not one of them cheered - one infact had his head in his hands. He then told his wife that he figured he wasnt going to be offered a contract.

 

He also mentioned about getting relegated saying it wasnt his fault. That we were already doomed by the time he'd arrived and no one could of saved up from the drop.

I always felt that Warnock was harshly treated by Oldham fans and the board. He came to us with a good reputation, taking on a crap squad that looked doomed and he gave us a fighting chance. He then got next to no money, yet we was competing for a play off spot for most of the season. When asked about why we weren’t in a play off spot he pointed out the real reason blaming the board and saying the clubs got absolutely no ambition and he was bang on! Probably why the board didnt like him!

Didn’t deserved the sack to be honest.....

I think it was his personality and style of football that didn’t go down well.

Depends on the kid....

I would say 5 is a minimum....they just arent going to stay intrested long enough / understand whats going on properly if they are any younger, generally speaking.

I would say 6-7 is the ideal age.....

A very good point

The fishal site says more work on traffic and environmental issues is needed and a decision is expected on the planning application by mid-October. That's more hopeful than the application being thrown out and having to be resubmitted.

 

http://www.oldhamathletic.premiumtv.co.uk/...1112207,00.html

Yeah totally agree, thats pritty standard request, asking for more work on evirormental and traffic issues.....so far so good!!

In truth the atmosphere has generally been rubbish in the Chaddy for the last 15 years or so, of course everyone isn't going to start singing on Saturday. I think the point is more whether you would rather hear what singing there is, or a random collection of thuds. As I've said before, if blue forty wants to help the atmosphere and if the drum is going to be allowed, then he should learn to play the bloody thing, and I don't mean learn in the ground.

I would rather hear whatever singing there was.....rather than that bloody drum!

Yeah fair play to you mate. May I suggest we have a re-vote after the Southend game then?

Good idea....I will re-create the vote after the game, or someone else can if they beat me to it.....use the same questions

Everytime he gets injured people right the kid off....and he just comes back and keeps scoring.....

lol...Michael Owen....average of 1 in two games...and people still find room to rip him apart....isnt football funny :P

which parks exactly??

 

i know foxdenton park is ok as i take my children there,and chaddy park,as i play bowls there.

 

however i havent been in werneth park for something like 15 years,after i was chased out by a gang of asian youths.telling me it was there park now.

the same with alexandra park,which in its heyday when i was a kid was a fantastic park,the boating lake,the ferry,the cafe and the annual bonfire show.

 

tandle hills park is a disgrace,there is so much oppertunity to turn it into something special but it is neglected,there used to be a small animal park there but now nothing.

 

as for other facilities where are they??? if you want to watch a film you have to go to rochdale,bury,ashton or manchester,same with bowling.

other towns have these a plenty and are thriving,our town is just a dump which people dont want to waste there time and money in.

Totally agree.....its shocking the decline of alexandra park. There is nothing in this town other than pubs and indian resturants. Yet all are neighbours have cinemas, bowling alleys etc

The town centre has not seen any investment in about 15 years or so.

Oldham sports centre is rotting away. The once fantastic queen elizabeth hall is now a dump with its main use being the oldham beer festival .

Nither business or entertainment has a foot hold in this ruin down town..... its unacceptably bad......

My point is that every town has rough areas. Given that people don’t need to live within a 5 minute walk from their job, that’s no reason for people not to take a job in a town just because it isn’t all picture postcard. It’s hardly like everyone who moves to London lives in a Docklands penthouse, I’ve lived in parts of Croydon (look it up in lists of chavtowns/worst places to live) where rottweillers only go in groups of 3. If you are talking about a shortage of skilled people to take good jobs in Oldham, I just don’t think there is one. There are thousands of perfectly nice places to live within a half hour or 45 minute journey time, at much lower prices than in many areas of the country.

I see your point and its right.

My point is also right though. the truth is somwhere in the middle.

A new business will always face a up hill struggle recuriting good people. First of all you are competing for the best people against the bigger more established companies. You tend to find that the best regional people will be taken on by the bigger companies leaving the smaller companies picking at the rest. When you factor in location and communting times you will find small business relies upon a strong local work force which oldham lacks. its true and this is basic business studies stuff.

the motorway helps local business recruit regionally but may other local towns also benefit from the m62 etc....

we need more big business in the town which will stimulate loccal growth...

we need office space devlopment. business parks etc...exactly what will be at the new bp....give business a place to be and thrive

then we can make use of the stiudents coming out of our succesful sixth form college and stop the skill drain.....

It’s the image of Northern post-industrial squalor that is the problem, not the reality.

Erm, you reckon ? My cars been vanadlised 3 times in the last two months....I hear fights outside on a nightly basis....gangs of youths free to do as they please....parents who couldnt give a monkey..... thats very much reality of living in limeside/hollins/hollinwood...and many other areas in oldham....

I've lived in oldham on and off for 22 years (due to uni and living in the wifes town) and I see the Northern post-industrial squalor realities on a daily basis....

I do agree the perception is what drives these polls...and not every northern town is bad although the image says it is.....but I just think in Oldham's case they have it bang on!

The problem is once you've had been away to uni and lived somewhere else why would you want to go back to living in Oldham? The only reason i came back was due to family circumstances. Most of the people i went to school with either left to go travelling or left to go to uni and never came back

Yup, thats what happens!

Im in the process of leaving the town as well...I went to Uni but had to seek my career out of the town.....finally given up on the place!

Over the last 20 years the place has just contined to nose dive....will always love the club but feel no pride for the town anymore...I live in Hollins and the area has just got worse and worse....I cant go sleep at night now without listening to someone having a fight outside or a car window going through.....just had enough and I wont subject my kids to it.....It was hard when I was a kid....its even harder now....

Hmmm so they have a low pool of skilled workforce. Well considering that Manchester has the biggest student populace in the country, that doesnt make any sense. There 1000s of students who want to stay in the Manchester region, can't afford the South side so move to the north side to places like Oldham.

Like i pointed out.....thats only temp while they are studying....vast majority return home

Hmmm so they have a low pool of skilled workforce. Well considering that Manchester has the biggest student populace in the country, that doesnt make any sense. There 1000s of students who want to stay in the Manchester region, can't afford the South side so move to the north side to places like Oldham.

 

Transport connections????? The M62?????

Your right about transport connections....M62 and M60....also the bus system isnt all that bad....average of a bus every five mins during the day between Oldham and Manchester.....

Regarding workforce what I say is true, OLDHAM does have a skills shortgage. Manchester is not Oldham. Alot of the sudents in manchester come from outside of manchester and return home afterwards. There are plenty of business in Manchester (traford park) and other towns around here competing for the students.....

A new start company would struggle to attract people to oldham due to that fact oldham isnt a great place to live, manchester is too expensive and when you consider living somewhere and traveling to the town the expenses can grow. Best chance of a new start company to get these students is to target people who grew up in Oldham and have been to uni and are looking for work. Thats what the term skill shortgage really means....its a local issue and one actually highlighted by a number of reports on the town!

.....a bigger company would have more success....but then again....we dont have alot of them!

Local skills shortage is just one of the many issues.....

No doubt there is a lot of truth in that, but it isn't the same as saying that it's a bad place to set up business. Look at York and Cambridge, both near the bottom of the list. Very beautiful cities packed with top of the range shops, leisure facilities and highly paid tech jobs. The fact is this makes them very expensive to set up in. Partly for the reasons you describe, Oldham offers cheap property and affordable labour whilst still being accessable. The things that are wrong are also part of why it could be turned around. The most important thing is for the council to get out of the way of potential investment and do nothing to increase costs on it.

I think the skills shortage is a problem, kind of were i was going.

I totaly agree with your comment :

The most important thing is for the council to get out of the way of potential investment and do nothing to increase costs on it.

but this is what exactly has been happening. About time the people of Oldham demanded more out of there council. The development at Boundary Park is actually more important for Oldham than Oldham Athletic but people dont see that.....

I also agree that a number of are weakness can be used as tools to stimulate growth!

Tonight's rarely wrong Chron says:

 

"

‘Oldham worst’ report comes under attack

 

by Usma Raja

A LEADING councillor has blasted a report which suggests Oldham is one of the worst places to set up a business.

 

Portman Travel ranked the borough at the bottom of the table and concluded that Bradford is the best place for a company to put its headquarters.

 

The research was based on the perception of 100 industry leaders and Oldham scored the lowest on a combination of factors.

 

Bob Govan, marketing and development director at Portman Travel said Oldham and towns at the bottom had relatively poor transport connections and smaller pools of potential employees.

 

But Oldham’s Cabinet member for environment and regeneration, Councillor David Hibbert said the report failed to recognise the town’s positive attributes.

 

He said: “We are tired of people writing about Oldham without even visiting the borough and seeing for themselves the many positive developments and initiatives.

 

“The report fails to recognise the extension of the Metrolink service to the town centre, the expansion of the university Oldham campus and the exciting new vision to develop an educational and theatre quarter in Oldham’s West End.â€

 

He added: “It also omits recent commercial developments such as the new Tesco, Asda and H&M stores.

 

A number of local commercial leaders also described the report as out-of date poppycock.

 

Bradford outranked cities such as London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow as the best place to set up businesses.

 

The bottom 10 locations also included York, Stockport and Cambridge. "

If it approves the planning applications for the redevelopment of BP, the Council will take a bold and imaginative step forward in the future progress – not only of professional sport in the town – but also for the Borough as a whole. The benefits of this type of development have been demonstrated with similar projects throughout the country. The proposals will attract a great deal of commercial interest in the proposed hotel and conference venue. The direct motorway access will open up a conference market of 20 million people who live and work less than 90 minutes drive from Boundary Park.

I totally agree with Oldham coming last. Not enough major employers. Everytime anyone trys to setup shop here we chase them out of town!!! Ikea is the best example. And there has been many more failed projects! Are stadium plans could be next no matter how good they are for the town.

Oldham Council has been diseased for a long time. Too busy taking opinions of the few instead of considering the benefits to the many. To many councilers more worried about staying in office instead of getting this town out of the gutter.

Town suffers from low employment, what employment there is low skilled, not enough oppotunities, failing schools........there is nothing to aim for living in this town. You look around and all we have is dieing town centre full of pound shops and cheap cafes (although a recent vist reviled a nice coffee shop in the town sqaure....i was shocked!)....and warehouse after warehouse offering nothing but picker packer jobs.....

So you end up with kids growing up with nothing to aim for and the few that to do grow up to have any talents go out of the town to find work.....so the cycle continues......

Now im not doing anyone down who might do those jobs (good hard working people keep this place going!!!) but im sure we all want are kids to aim higher and do as well as they can......and i dont think our kids get offered that chance! ...well not in this town anyways!

The stadium development at latics will create jobs....both low skiller and high skilled! Will keep profesional sport alive in the town and will give are kids an example of what can be achived in this world...... But it shouldnt stop there...we need the development at hollinwood to get going and we need to start getting new business into the town.....

More business in the town mean more money for latics through sponosorship etc.....not a granteed bet but it cant be a bad thing.....big sucesful local firm maybe intrested in sponsoring us....has to be better than a two bit car dealership!

Just under 100 people have replied to this post repersenting about 2% of the fan base.......

By no means offical I bet that this is a repersentation of the overall feeling. Exit polls and opinion pools sample smaller percentages and they are usally good bets to the outsomes of elections!!! So I think this poll holds some weight.

I put it to the drummer, if he reads this, or anyone that knows him, not to the bring the drum for a couple of games and see if the atmosphere is just as good or better. And if it is, never to bring it again!!!

The introduction of a drum hasnt proved succfesful, Boundary Park is queiter then its ever been in my opinion. Time to stop brining it.

C'mon, you're all havin' a laff, aint yer? Who in hell needs proven ex-premier talent to get out of this god-forsaken league?

 

(robs coco's cloak and with a mwah, ha, ha)

Coco would immediatly claim it to be a bad signing :P im sure of that :P

Good spot I_C.

 

When asked who his all-time footballing hero was by foreign journalists at the World Cup in 2002, Scholesy cited Andy Ritchie.

 

He's a patron of Trust Oldham and during our dark times he told the Trust's website:

“It’s upsetting to see the club having such a bad time. I’ve been a fan ever since my dad used to take me, and when you’ve watched a team for so many years you want to help. Adrian (Stores) asked me to get involved and help out a bit, which I was happy to do. It would be great to see them get over these problems and, hopefully, move on from there.”

 

He is widely believed to be the 'anonymous donor' of funds to cover the Northern Ireland pre-season trip when we were in Administration.

 

The story about Scholesy that really impressed me was that he was spotted by a Latics' fan watching a local cricket match - I think it was Werneth - and he was wearing a Latics' shirt. It takes some doing for us to do that, but for Scholesy to show his true colours proudly is truly impressive!

 

This was before it was commonly known that he is a keeper of the Faith. The Latics' fan chastised him by saying "What are you doing wearing that?" and Scholesy is alleged to have said "I only work for those red barstewards!" I know it sounds like a far-fetched urban myth, but I like to believe that it's true.

lol, I doubt he feels that way about united :P But like you said, its nice to think its true :P

Yes but I like it so I'm right and you're all wrong so nerr (and I am gonna tell me mum!)

Ban the drum..but get off ya bum (and sing!)

lol fair enough and i totally agree about people getting off there bum

Like his dum-de-dum dum dum, dum-de-dum dum dum - gets us all singing ner ner, ner ner, ner ner ner ner ner-ne nerrr OLDHAM. Bit of a witch hunt on here aint there. The lad himself may not be everyone's cup of tea but I like haveing something different from the mundane. If you all want to ban the drummer, let's have everyone off their seats and giving it 110% getting behind the lads and singing - that would be fine with me! I LIKE NOIZ, GIVE ME SOME NOIZ!!!

Thats not fair....no witch hunt....just people have an opinion and feelings about it....

I’m starting to wonder if all this dislike for the drum has come from the stories we’ve heard about the drummer. I remember last May when we played Blackpool in the playoffs and I think just about everyone was pro drums. We were all going on about him out drumming the lashers drummer (impossible I know!) and to make as much noise as possible. Stories being posted about how he had blisters on his hands and how hopefully he would be okay for the away leg.

 

What happened?

 

Now it’s easy for me to be pro drums as I don’t sit in the Chaddy End and as much can’t hold as big an opinion as anyone who does.

I dont know of these storys.....

I think you can have an opinion....obviously it dosent annoy you as you dont have to sit in front of it and have ur ears destroyed but you can certainly comment on if you feel it is helping or destroying the atmosphere....

Just what I was thinking. Should ¾ of the Chaddy End move somewhere else just because this lad likes hitting something to make a loud noise? I suppose if someone beside me on my train up next weekend is playing loud crap tinny music out of his phone, then I should just go to another carriage and try to find a seat there. The same if someone sits behind me at the pictures and takes phone calls all the way through the film.

..exactly...

For me the best test is to compare the atmosphere pre drum and post drum.....

For me its about the same if no worse, but now its annoying the hell out of alot of people....

As for moving to another seat....I never think that comments fair, people have there seasonticket seats for many a year and i belive its unfair to ask people to move.

We'll just wait until you log off and then change it to Ronnie Moore!

:sign0094:

Very easily done for £5!

 

We need to change the wording on the OWTB Shop but we have an agreement with The Club and we only keep back enough money to meet the monthly costs of running this Board. Anything else is paid over to OAFC so you would be helping the Club as well as helping yourself sleep at night! The alternative is to keep posting and you will get a better name in due course!

 

Change Your Group for a Fiver!

you cheeky swines :P :P No self respecting Oldham Fan would subject there fellow fan to such awful treatment to have that muppets name next to them. Feel ashmed

£5 :getbent:

Im going to be postnig alot it seems :P

Only joking, might do that