help_shiny

we might finish 5th.We might finish 6th.We might finish 12th I'd say odds still against playoffs & if we do make them we will lose in the semi finals just like we always do (1990 League Cup excluded).So just enjoy your footy & don't get too emotionally invested in potential success as you'll just have your heart ripped out.We're NOT going up & will stay in this division until an asteroid destroys civilisation (or we go bust, same thing really) edit - interesting that "we're not going up" comes out as "we're going up" even after edit.A sign from the Football Gods? It's our year after all, yay

was that the game Brian Talbot got caught up in some weird political violence on Oldham Road in Manchester on the way there? Kurds or something like that? edit - no it wasnt: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jan/30/iraq.world

10 years? Pffft, where has time gone - my life is slipping awaaaaay. Cracking day that was, really felt we were on for the win beforehand - blowing a gale, premier league nancy boys, David James flapping his arms about - and so it came to pass. Remember we had another one incorrectly ruled out because someone was near James as we scored directly from a corner. Which we also did against him during our great escape in 1993 when he played for Liverpool

no way I'd explain to to a 7 year old what Evans did. My 7 year old's last Latics game she turned to me and said "Daddy, what's a rent boy". Rather than explain about the physical act of union, about this thing happening between men, about young men being paid in exchange for these services I just said "no, he said Red Boy. And I dont understand because he's not even wearing red is he? I think he's drunk". As for Evans it'd be a simple "what? oh, err, no he said racist". I certainly wouldn't stop taking my kids just because Evans is playing but I think most whose children arent deaf or away with the fairies would give this Saturday a miss. As for encouraging my children to support someone else because I really really really don't like the man who runs the club and his amazingly bad decision....woah, there - that way lies madness. In 10, 15,20 years time at my kid's football watching peak they wont even know who Ched Evans is and hopefully Simon Corney too. There's probably middle aged men out there who support Yoonited because Ken Bates once was rude to their father in the Main Stand in 1967, don't go down the same road!

I might have read the situation wrong but I don't think LJ is at fault. If he has expressed his opinion - as was reported by one of the nationals - within the club that he's against signing Evans then why on earth is he at fault? He's been done over more than any of us have. He may indeed walk or maybe he wont - would you just walk out of your job into an uncertain future if your firm employed a convicted rapist? Not such an easy decision to make, I'm guessing the majority of us would do no such thing.

some of the people who agree with me that Oldham shouldnt sign Ched Evans are beginning to make me want to sign him. I massively resent Corney for putting us in this position, I don't want Evans playing for Latics but I also think the 'radical feminists' (their words not mine) who are haunting social media would eff off and fight a real cause. Female Genital Mutiliation? Nah. Islamic State selling women as sex slaves in markets? Nah. Women being forced to wear veils? Nah. Rape sentencing that puts people like Evans out on the street so soon? Nope. Ah yes, let's whip ourselves into a frenzy over a League 1 football club that none of us have even heard of before. Many millions of women around the word suffer and these people say <expletive> all about any of it. He's out of prison and if you think sentencing should also mean that your punishment should continue once you're out then go and badger your MP to change the laws of the land. I don't want him at my club and I can't believe Latics have gone down this destructive path but do I think Evans should never play football again? No. Should he still be in prison? Perhaps but that's nothing to do with Latics. Do I think getting off your head, smashing your car into another and leaving them there to die while you hide out until your system is clear was worse? Yes but would seem I'm in the minority.

I'm dead set against signing the bloke and dead set against the clowns at the club but any organised protest will immediately attract all kinds of people who have zero interest in our football club and it's wellbeing. Maybe just chant/shout what you feel - it could be quite cathartic, let out all your primal anguish. Always the chance of the bloke next to you being pro the signing though and bopping you on the nose. Tricky. Then again, as a committed part timer I won't be there anyway so I'll pipe down

yeah, been bugging me for the past couple of days. Hordes of morons unable to understand that the vast majority of those 30k are not Oldham fans, have probably never been to Oldham and most probably don't even watch football. Shame about not being able to get a decent figure on the fans thoughts - only way of doing that would be for the Trust to have a fancy website,every member (and therefore ST holder) has their unique login id - they clickety click and vote on the topic of the day or once a year for their online free and transparent elections etc etc. Anything else is going to be hijacked by angry outsiders (as opposed to angry insiders) So a few years down the line when Latics go tits up and we're a NWCL side playing in Ashton as Atletico Oldham could whoever has picked up the pieces please set the said website up & when some misguided wallah at the club is about to sign a predatory paedophile who is out on licence we can refer it to the supporters?

why would that be? Because he's the only man in the world who can run the club or..............who the heck would buy a club that has no real assets because some people got the ground back on mates rates but then put it in a separate company? Terrible that, poor old Simon - it's not fair those shysters are preventing anyone else being interested in buying Latics. He should find out these people's names and OH HOLD ON.....

I'm helped by the fact I had close to zero respect for them in the first place so no great change in my worldview. World class bungling yesterday/today though. Gordon Taylor torpedoing the deal by blabbing about it yesterday has probably done the club a great favour but we still come out of it looking terrible

You're right, I wouldn't sign him but Corney obviously 100% wants to for it to have gotten so far. To then have this circus and bad PR (even if we back out now the club still look bad) on the day we were supposed to be signing him is very poor. I think that's the problem with the club being basically SC with Owen there to do what he's told - with more directors with clout on the board this would not have gotten so far - Corney needed some wise counsel over this and obviously didnt get any.

I agree with the argument that once someone has served their time then you can't then prevent them from working, if he plays professional football again it wont cause me palpitations and have me sighing petitions left right and centre. There's plenty of worse people than Evans out there living free and earning a living. I just really don't want him playing for our club. I feel the same way I did with Lee Hughes - I wouldn't touch him with a bargepole. Although Lee Hughes was an even worse case in my opinion - running off leaving two dead there and then and another died a year later - and I know plenty of people didn't give two hoots. The fact is though that signing Evans is PR suicide for the club, there's far more to lose than gain - Corney's not doing it as a principled stand in his fight for the rehabilitation of offenders, he's doing it because he sees it as a signing we could never have hoped for in normal circumstances - is Evans going to shoot us all the way to the Championship? No. Is his signing going to lose us fans and goodwill? Yes.

scratch my above fixture suggestion - as pointed out higher up Ashton United are playing host to that shower from down the road. Go on....you know you want to

rather than wait for an Eintracht game that will probably never come perhaps Latics fans should have a 'fanfreundschaft' with a local non league team. Tameside, for example, seems to have a score of them at a reasonable level (or for something more rudimentary there's Chadderton). Then when you're at a loose end because Rochdale are inexplicably still in the Cup then just turn up there en-masse. It'd probably be a lot of fun. And a huge bonus for whichever club's ground was invaded for the day. A few hundred of you roaring on Mossley away to Northwich Vics (who play in Flixton for some reason) would blow away the festive cobwebs

all seater stadiums kill atmospheres but so does membership of the Premier League. Be interesting to see if the Kopites try to resurrect things, they must all know it's finished and they're trading on history - which I guess is what their whole club is about! I know the Crystal Palace ultras arent everyone's cup of tea but there's no denying that place is rocking, a few more clubs should follow that lead

you know as well as I that they were raised by Jackals. Their current ascendancy can only mean the end times are coming

I was cheering for Johnny Foreigner from the get go. I love it when certain clubs from the 'world's greatest league' get their comeuppance. Liverpool heading for the Europa League would be far surpassed by City failing tonight though - that would be a great gift to all of humanity

what a joke they were last night, a couple of quiet short chants across the whole of the first 80 minutes. Then they woke up. All the while you have Clive Tyldesley and then after the game that West Brom divvo suggesting how noisy they were - or did they think the Kop were singing in Swiss German? The Liverpool atmosphere has now become one of the great myths of football to be wheeled out everytime they have a European night. Well the Kop roared their team into the Europa League last night, well done lads. They'll probably start piping in crowd noises the next time they make the Champions League Now....Forza Roma! Up the CSKA!

Sounds like Atletico have ignored the cancer attached to their club for too long. And Jimmy Romero was an eejit by the sound of things - two kids and he's off to a set to involving deadly weapons. (obviously you'd be an eejit even if you had no kids)

depends what his family is like I suppose

55 but then my Mum banned me from going to Carlisle away on a Tuesday night after I'd got in from Leicester at 2am the week before (I was a schoolboy).Now my longest run is always 1 game.I think my brother got to c.130 before a selfish grandparent died.Good job he stopped as I thought he was teetering on the edge of sanity - Middlesbrough away in the Simod Cup being a case in point.

I'm sure their less hysterical older hands will also be rolling their eyes. I was at Dale v Bolton in Division 4 many moons back and there was fighting on two of the three terraces for pretty much the entire game. I wonder what the MEN reporter would have made of that - a national state of emergency probably!

It didn't look that bad but as a relative old timer I've seen Attack Ships on fire off the Shoulder of Orion. Worst I've seen with Latics for a long while mind you but a few scuffles aren't full on football violence by a long shot

right, got there in the end. Krefeld's number one grass seed salesman (available for all your grass seed needs) tells me that it's just a drinking song - Zicke Zacke Zicke Zacke Hoi! Hoi! Hoi! The Zicke and Zacke might have meant something once but they don't anymore. So taking that and everything above...some bevvied Germans in 1958 or 1962 passed it onto England's proto hooligans and after a few twists and turns it eventually became associated with the greatest football club on earth

right, my last on this before I have to do some work - it's Zicke Zacke not Zicker Zacker. No idea what it means but it's an old carnival shout - the head pish heed would shot Zicke Zacke and the mob would shot the Hoi Hoi Hoi bit which might have been Heu (Hay) and the Zicke might have something to do with a cow. I'm seriously struggling though! Then I think there's a Third Reich military connection, there seems to be a Wehrmacht marching song called Zicke Zacke but as far as I can tell there's no "Zigger Zagger" style shouting in it Right, I best go and do some work before I get sacked for playing Nazi marching songs. Tough one to talk your way out of