Scapegoat

Rick Holden (no contest in terms of ability no matter how much I think of Eyres as a person) Joe Royle (Frizzell before my time, and Joe for his faults took us to places we could never of imagined) Porter (20+ goals in a season is a landmark acheivement for Latics) Earl Barrett (no contest in terms of ability and left a legacy behind - RRE) Kilkenny (no much between them - but seemed to have more affinity with Latics than Ritchie) Andrews (Go Hard or Go Home season was great - and Julie was a good nickname) Phil Starbuck (because he has left a bigger impression on my than many other players - for the wrong reasons mind) Shaun Garnett (Alf was a good servant in some poor times - Branston, forgetable in everyway) Roger Palmer (All-time top scorer and just a bit mysterious - though Frankie was a class player, you could still see that in the Legends game) Sheriden (tough call. But was a beacon of quality in otherwise dire time, been here longer, potentailly a very good manager. Redders - one season of brilliance and the ultimate finish, but Shez has done more) BEFORE MY TIME - my Dad raves about Fryatt. Barlow (tough call, but Pudding on a Muffin and the fact he was from Oldham swings it - though Irwin must be one of the best players to have ever played for us in terms of what he acheived in his entire career) Halle (Bad teeth, commitment, played in our best ever team) Gerrard (would have been Goram apart from that Cardiff game - still scarred by that game)

The programme gives team news? These days its just a check list of the entire squad so you can tick who played (if you are anal enough). With 4000-5000 fans turning up to look at it - nobody is going to pay big money to advertise on it. As a retrofit option its unlikely to ever be cost effective - a small additional cost in the developement of a new stand? Maybe.

Again - another speculation story I have heard. Most odd story I heard at the time was that his sister had called GMR phone-in at the start of the crisis telling everyone it was a mistake and Chris was sticking with the club - did that ever happen? (the phone call - not him sticking by the club). Wonder if he would ever tell the story from his point of view in the future?

Please read my post above re: rumour and specualtion and Chris Moore

Chris Moore - I would love to know the true story behind the 'crisis' that followed the "Go hard or Go Home Season". Some odd and contradictory stories at the time that have been supplemented by rumour and speculation ever since. But it was exciting for a while wasn't it? Though I do remember feeling as ashamed as I have ever been supporting Latics with the "We've got loads of money" chants in the early days at Bury away. TTA - they seem more grounded. Bought the ground over silly signings and huge wage bills, but willing to back Shez enough in my opinion to try and serve something worthwhile on the pitch whilst the club is trying to get the finances on a steady footing. Yes we have loads of land that we (at present) do nothing with. So if TTA make some money from that land and we still own enough for our clubs needs with a newly developed stadium - I think they could part with no malice from the fans (or at least me). Overall big money backers are an interesting subject. For me, anyone that is not a fan of the club concerned will be viewed with some level of doubt. Football (with one or two exceptions) is not a business that makes money in large amounts if at all - so why would you do it? And if you do, unless you do it in a sustainable manner, you are building a pack of cards with no foundations. Even if they are a fan - something can happen that can still dump the club into crisis (death / financial collapse etc). Given the amount of emotional investment we fans put into our clubs, why would we want to risk the entire future of them to single individuals? But they do make watching a small, going nowhere teams, suddenly more exciting. Remember Stop the Rot? We have benefited from the phenomenom - not as much as Wigan / Chelsea - and we are looking upwards not down. But whilst we are dependant upon single individuals to cover weekly losses - we are always at risk from another summer from hell.

They wish

Odd thing from LW commentary - "Don't let Davies take the penalty please". Really supportive comment! Also only experienced striker on the pitch - why not Craig?

Difference for me is that when not scoring Hughes still looks the part and plays a good part in bringing other players in. At present Davies doesn't appear to have the "footballing brain" to make the right decisions at the right time (pass, shoot etc) so if he doesn't score - for me his contribution if far less than when Hughes doesn't score. BUT Davies has bags of potential. Can score, pace, skill etc. Perhaps he needs some time / coaching / a spell in the reserves etc. and I hope he is big enough to take it if Shez does. If not and he goes because he spits his dummy / boo boys get on his back - you can be sure he'll do a Barlow* Scapegoat * - go somewhere else and look like a world beater.

Stuff it - we haven't got anyone of the players we want so buy anyone instead? Not sure if that was the sentiment you were trying to portray but if so that is not the reason to buy a player. IMO Vernon - meh. Not sure.

Always thought Luke Rogers was a decent player - also the fact he stuck with Shrewsbury for the season they went down to the Conference showed amazing loyalty in modern football terms. Would link up will with Hughes - but not a great target man. However I prefer not to have a target man as it tends to drag us into Ronnie style hoof-ball.

Remeber a few years ago in a pre-season FourFoutTwo supplement on the prospects of all teams there was a section in which fans were asked a few questions, one was favourite chant / terrace comment. The Crystal Palace fan quoted the bloke who sat behind him who in the previous season had let out a rant including "Bruce Dyer? Bruce Dyer? You couldn't be more appropriately named unless you were called Bruce Absolutley F*****g Useless!". Made me smile, and always think of it when any Dyer is mentioned.

For the last few years I, and the people who I sit with in the Chaddy, have been convinced we must be one of the most ineffective teams from corners particulary, and throw-ins to a lesser extent. I am sure there must be some Opta stats somewhere on the web that show no. of corners earned and goals scored from corners (never looked) but I'd bet we must have one of the worst ratios in the league. Some my thoughts on the discussions so far: A whole host of good passers have taken ineffective corners for Latics over the recent years IMO e.g. Shez, Eyres, Liddel (best of the bunch), Kilkenny, Wellens etc. Good players who in an Oldham shirt take rubbish corners. Eardley or other defender taking corners - Pointon used to take them very effectively so it can be done without too much defensive risk. Though Eard's crosses don't inspire me to have him take corners. Short corners - a useful tool if used sparingly. We caused Forest lots of problems at the City Ground this season with a short-corner routine we used a few times. never seen it again - why? Chris Taylor - confidence after Hudds is absolutely shot. 1st corner on Tues hit first man, next few were all short. Tried another 2nd half with same outcome (and understandable groans from Chaddy) and again reverted to short corners. You'd think after hitting first man so many times he'd actually be over-compensating and over hitting, but he doesn't seem to have done even that (though weather on Tuesday was not great to be fair). After a few groans on Tuesday, he was still getting lots of cheers, shouts of encouragement and clapping as he continued to run to take them Its hard to believe that we practice these things at times. But Shez does need to look at this urgently - we get a good number of corners and if we were more effective from them it would make a bif difference to our attacking threat. If you could do substitutions like hockey or american football I'd bring back Dissa and put him on just to take corners.

Ian Wright

Where do you see 3 goals coming from?

Truth? Not confident. Missing our best striker, other (davies) is out of form. Home form is poor and players seem nervous and tense even when we are in front at BP. 4600 noisy away fans and (potentially) quiet home fans (we can rouse ourselves sometimes) is not going to help either. Ex-Latic player in Beckett likely to be on scoresheet. Draw at best - but then again our away run has to come to an end sometime. 1-1 at BP, 2-0 to Hudds away. Had a bad day at work and don't feel very postive.

Mike Fillery - not sure if we paid any cash for him, but the 12-13 minutes he had were pretty decent IIRC. Phil Starbuck would have been a better signing for Latics IF he'd had the same 'luck' as Fillery. Unfortunately that plank played too many times and for me with 26 years following Latics, he is the only player I can honestly say I loathed. Wigan away........shocking to see so much abuse hurled at a player from his own fans, and I even joined in (and never boo or jeer a latics player normally).

TTA said there is money available, but tbh I presumed they meant money for wages in terms of frees/loanees. I didin't think that we'd be paying transfer fees. Clarke - not decided on him, but has potential and didn't realise he was only 22. Could be a good signing. £1m for Davies? Surely not. £250-300k max I'd have thought. Firstly I don't think he is that good (inconsistent and not a great football brain - misses too many passes for shots at goal, crosses are average for a player who goes out wide). I think he is a decent player at this level, but lots of areas to improve. Secondly. We are Oldham Athletic. We could have Ronaldo here and we'd only get £500k plus a miriad of additional clauses that meant the Chron could report it as a £1million transfer...

I accepted the home kit for 2 years, away kit for 2 years and the alternating change. I useually bought both. New manufactures / new sponsors was more annoying. I'd buy the former (home shirt only) but not the latter. Now with the away kit having in essence a 12 month lifespan (3rd kit my backside) have stopped buying away shirts. You are not forced to buy anything I agree - but the club (and football in general) knows what its doing with this and it stinks. As for quality of Carlotti - I think its decent actually, as good as many other kits.

In my opinion you have made my point. We are 100+ years old and we have played in all blue, red and blue hoops (I stand corrected - was sure I saw a team photo of blue and white hoops), blue and tangerine and a 1/3 2/3 blue and white kit. On top of that we have had the recent Pony/Slumberland kit with large white areas under the arms AND the Sparta/Slumberland kit that was almost all white with one blue panel on the front. For a while in the last few years - the blue kits have had red detail e.g. the FA Cup 94 kit. On top of that I can recall out shorts and socks changing from Blue to White a number of times in the 25 years I have been watching Latics. We have had a similar design for 60 years (just more that half our existence) but the rest has been a mish-mash. And its the more recent years that I (and most others remember), so I don't think we have an identity in the way that other clubs do. Other clubs stick to a design (or appear to from my recollection) e.g. Huddersfield, Notts County, Blackburn etc etc. Even other clubs that have a more ordinary design (Man Utd, Chelsea, Birmingham etc) I cannot recall going through the large variation of kits we have over the last 25 years. For me - short, sock and shirt colours for a home kit should be set in stone. Ours are not - we may have had a period in the early days of football where we did, but we lost that tradition over 40 years ago.

...and ended our long unbeaten home run whilst wearing it. Though they did win the league that season and get promoted - so not all bad. Not a big fan of the 'new rotation' of away kits which means that you get a new away kit every year, plus a new home one every other year. Since then I have only bought home shirts as I think the other changes too often for other teams to know who you support when you are wearing it. If we accept the new away shirt rotation is a fact of life and provides much needed revenue for the club, there is nothing wrong with challenging the choice of away shirts is there? We change our home shirt regularly but it still maintains (in the most part - red hoops and an all white back have been recent exceptions) the Oldham blue look. I suppose because we have a 3 shirt policy that the 2nd and 3rd cannot be variations on each other. Shame a new tangerine shirt would have been ok and started a 'brand' as someone else mentioned (Liverpool used be Yellow away - and that was that). I have voted for the Barca style - buts is the best of a bad bunch and I won't buy it. Latics have never had an identity in terms of a kit - which is a shame. The red/blue hoops was awful, but tried to reflect an old blue and white hooped shirt from long ago. If at that stage they had gone for blue and white hoops and stuck with it it might have been better.

As a Lancastrian in exile on the "wrong" side of t'hills this has some added spice for me with some of the blokes at work. To repeat what others have said - not the Big Draw we all wanted i.e. top premiership team, preferably away for the day out and the cash. Also from a financial point of view its not home to a higher division side, which given the rest of the draw would have probably snagged us a TV date. But there were a fair few less enticing prospects out there - and at least League One will be represented in Round 5. If not us, I'll wish Andy Ritchie the best of look. Hudds fans at work not overjoyed either. Some comments include: "Bloody Hell" "We get nowt at Boundary Park apart from 'flu" "Probably be two rubbish draws followed by a shambles of a penalty shoot-out" I for one am looking forward to it - come on the Blues!

Was there as well. Might dig out the video of the 'pinch me' season before Saturday to relive the memories that little bit more. After falling 0-2 down in the first leg, and getting back to 2-2, I remember being glad we had retianed out unbeaten home record (eventually snatched off us by a neon Sheff Utd) and had little expectation for the replay. I loved the fact that you just carried on having replays - not the same these days. Went on to thump Villa 3-0 in the QFs before eventually coming up against the reds. Despite the eventual loss in the semi-fianl replay - some of the games that season were immense.

I completely agree. He was still a very very good top flight player when he signed for us. During one of our Premier League seasons (think it was the one we got relegated) Sharp was out for about 10 games in a row due to an injury (back if I recall) - which co-incided with us picking up about 1 point from 30. His contribution was much underated, but if he'd been fit all season I firmly believed we'd have managed another year in the top flight. Arrrggghhh. Its almost as painful a moment as 'THAT' goal. Is best forgotten.

Maybe not in the 70s and 80s, but football has changed significantly since then. Money is a far bigger influence now than at any other time. In the 70s and 80s it was possible for teams outside 4 (arguably 3 clubs) big teams to have a realistic chance of winning the top league title. Now clubs like Everton / Villa etc strive to get 4tyh at best. Based on our set-up and fan-base - we are where we are probably best suited. Doesn't mean that we can't strive to improve, but we'd always be seen as punching above our weight in the Championship by everyone else.

Crikey - not spent a lot of time on here recently and I am surprised by this thread. Since Shez has been in charge, the overall quality of football we try (not always succeed) to play has been better than a number of seasons before it (I inlcude the successful, but workmanlike Dowie Play-off season in this as well). I have actually 'enjoyed' watching Latics for the last couple of seasons. We are a team with limited resources and an over-expectant home-support who recall us punching above our weight and expect too much. Whilst there is money available from TTA, it hasn't been enough for Sheriden to retain and build on last years success (the loss of Wellens and Porter are proof of that). So it has required some re-building this year - and I think overall we are improving (the league table is proof of that). We could easily match last years achievements this season by finishing in the play-offs, but even if we don't I'd still keep Sheriden in charge. As long as we don't get relegated, let him continue to learn his trade - its not as though we'd have a long list of successful managers queueing up to replace him is it? The most successful managers on the whole have been at clubs for a while before success comes along - yet chairmen, media and fans all demand instant success or you are out. Madness.