Simpo

To think THAT won the fan kit vote! Imagine if we'd had this gorgeous Barca-style one instead?

As well as it being unfair to fans, having support come from only half the stands in the stadium puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Just look what happened to our home record from the time of the Lookers being knocked down.

In that case... something like this on Saturday? Gary Woods / 28 Zak Mills / 27 David Wheater / 32 Jamie Stott / 21 Ashley Smith-Brown / 23 (unconfirmed, Iacovitti otherwise) Christopher Missilou / 27 Mohamed Sylla / 25 Johan Branger-Engone / 26 Mohamed Maouche / 26 Gevaro Nepomuceno / 26 Scott Wilson / 26 *bloody Vera will get picked, I know Bench: Gregor Zabret / 23 Tom Hamer / 19 Alex Iacovitti / 21 (or Sefil...) Florian Gonzales / 20 Desire Azankpo / 26 Dylan Fage / 20 Urko Vera / 32 Last season at Forest Green, also early August: Iversen; Hunt, Graham, Edmundson, Hamer; Nepo, Gardener, Coke, Missilou, Branger; O'Grady. Bench was Zeus, Stott, Sheridan, Norris, Maouche, Baxter, Benteke. Clarke and Surridge were injured. Winchester is suspended for them this weekend.

I've never put a bet on a game of football, and have not seen us pre-season, but... I'm considering putting a few on for Saturday: £10 on Forest Green to win £10 double FGR & Exeter (vs Macc) £10 treble FGR & Exeter & Wycombe (vs Bolton) Is that any good, or would you change any of the games?

I think AL has seen he can save money by not using the Joe Royle stand this season, and can now place the blame on the new fan led group instead of taking it himself. And if they cave and allow him to use it cheaper than last season, it's a sign of weakness for them and a 'win' for him.

As suspected, Paul Murray has come back to the club to take the reins as boss of the youth team. Got to be seen as a positive, as long as he can keep his head down and not fall foul of the regime. I hope he teaches every player how to put the oppo goalkeeper on their arse like he does at the 5 minutes point of this video:

Yeah it will be the youth, who are playing a few senior sides in pre-season. They already got a creditable 1-1 draw with founder members of the newly formed Welsh second tier Buckley Town.

Mason Fawns scored for Bradford City yesterday, he's there on a trial basis.

Seems to be a good shot stopper. Couple of honours to his name, League One title and Scottish League Cup. Doncaster fans throwing a few pelters, but he played at Champ/L1 level there, and left them when he was 22, a kid in goalie terms. Still feels like we'll go nowhere under current ownership, but on paper Mills and Woods are heartening signings. Think it's good to get solid signings like these in early, helps convince others to join as well.

Blackburn away in the League Cup, which these days is in the second week of the season.

Daniel Iversen starts for Denmark vs Germany in the Euro U21 finals

I'm not sure how he's able to know this info about an obscure manager, but I know Alex Stewart, whose tactical analysis of Banide is in this article, is very reputable. http://d3d4football.com/oldham-appoint-laurent-banide-as-new-head-coach/

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/6185253/adam-morallee-david-hayes-tony-bellew/ Interesting bloke... (Sorry it's a Sun link, like)

Quite like the design, good to have the classic Hummel chevrons on the sleeves. Always happy when the sponsor is just a word, not a colourful mess of a logo. I like the dark grey with the orange, a bit of a twist to set it apart from other recent orange ones. Always a big laugh to see creases in a kit launch photo too.

Congratulations to Jamie Stott, who wins a National League North winners medal and Stockport's Young Player Of The Year award.

When you've watched a few games, you know where it is instinctively, from how the players are moving etc. What a sport btw, particularly at NHL level.

The Lang photo looks professional, I'm guessing h's modelling some clothes for a mate trying to get a clothing line going, maybe called Jester or something. At a guess.

With prize money, this new Progress Prize, almost certain 5th round TV money, and gate receipts, we're talking at least £750k if we can get through, potentially a lot more with the right draw.

My mate, who isn't an Oldham fan, reckons the Beckham stuff is all a dog and pony show by Salford to give themselves some promotion. Instead of Scholes selling straight to him and it being all about us, Salford are getting ahead of the story and have had loads of media down yesterday to talk about them. Then if and when it's needed, Scholes quietly sells his 10% to Peter Lim, Lim doesn't own more than 50% of the club thanks to selling some of his shares to Beckham. Seems needlessly complicated, but nothing about our dalliances with appointing Scholes have been normal.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2019/jan/08/david-squires-on-the-timeless-magic-of-the-fa-cup-football

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na Missi Missilou, Missilou He's harder than you!

Jenny's my mate, she was asking for ideas in the week. I was well chuffed to get a Hallelujah on Fighting Talk!

John Askey: "Macclesfield endured a difficult season off the pitch during the 2017–18 campaign, as financial problems meant that players went unpaid in January despite the wage bill being one of the lowest in the division. Despite these restrictions, Askey managed to guide Macclesfield to promotion back to the Football League as champions of the National League." I think at times this season we've had a taste of what the National League level is about, and Askey knows how to get results and importantly, promotion, amid this kind of football and financial atmosphere. This makes him the most sensible, viable option for me, and I'd be relieved as much as anything if we went for him.

I wouldn't be surprised if Miller's packed it in again. He has said all along he only returned to football because of Frankie Bunn. With any luck, so has Coke...