mikeroyboy

A top four team/exciting football would create the atmosphere. There was nothing wrong with the atmosphere against Peterborough second half. I guess the club are more comfortable with the RRE for big away followings because of its flexibility while home support is quite poor. As long as the club are confident home support will be less than 5,000 they are happy to let away fans have the large section and close the small section to save on police and stewarding costs. It also allows them to let away support have it all if necessary. If the club expect 6,000 plus home fans we take the small section as in the Liverpool and Everton Cup games. Maximising profit is what matters most to the club. I have not voted because it doesn't effect me but I have been in both and the Chaddy is drier. Having said that, every ground in the country is open to getting wet in windy weather on its south and west facing stands. We have packed them in before in wet weather, maybe we should leave it to the team.

Would it be a fair assessment to say Celtic are equivalent to a decent Championship club and Aberdeen are comfortably top of a League 1 group of clubs? It stands to reason he will be getting more time and space than he did here and he is the lucky guy nearest the nets.

The $5m is fully funded: £1.5m from supporters and the rest from a number of grants and donations. The total includes $500,000 from Manchester Council. Trying to compare FC United with Oldham Athletic is not realistic. There is unlikely to be a precedent to match what FC United have done - wealthy supporters of a wealthy club breaking away to form another club with the generic name of the 'mother' club. And taking an initial groundswell of 3 or 4 thousand readymade fans with them. FC United are totally unique in modern football and owe it all to a group of fairly wealthy people with a vision, business acumen and fans dedicated enough to get it off the ground.

Oxley was outstanding today in all areas. The best performance I have seen him have by a country mile.

LJ will start building for the future during the summer. With the new stand coming on stream next year and prices going up there will be some leeway to actually bring two or three very decent players in. Everything he has been doing recently is short term. Not all of it completely understandable I agreed, but Corney has not given Johnson a 4yr contract to fart about. It pretty much looks like he is plumping for experience to get us to mid-table. All, IMO of course.

Well spoken Barry. I spent around 15yrs as a Director - about half that as Chairman - of a small Limited Company. On rare occasions at AGM's I would be taken to task by a shareholder over something that I thought was unrealistic, unaffordable or too time consuming to achieve for the Director who would be delegated to bring the proposal to fruition, which was often me. In these instances my answer would be to invite them onto the Board to deliver their proposal (very doable in our case). That was 'always' the end of the matter. In my experience, very rarely is something as easy as it seems. Voicing concerns and seeking change is a far easier than finding someone to be accountable. But no less valid.

Agreed! But every club that has gone belly-up has 'a bit of a different situation'. In the case of how we would have fared in Failsworth - it was hotly debated at the time by fans. It was far from being viewed unanimously as a 'good' move.

How could you possibly judge that? Darlington fans would have been thinking on similar lines. History gives us the 'facts' on what happened there. In the meantime I will stick to living memory for the best thing that has happened to this club, IMO. - The three years in the top flight and being founder members of the Premier League. The future, what if? No one knows.

Present yourself at the ticket office as smart and as well groomed as you can. Put ALL the remnants of your book in a clear plastic bag so they can pick at it if they wish. As previously stated take some irrefutable ID. Make no demands and portray yourself humbly as a victim of a careless mistake without going overboard on any silly excuses. If they look as though they or considering it or they say they will seek a second opinion. Calmly add that it is the sort of mistake we all make on occasions. That won't be a lie or an exaggeration. And they will know it. Be prepared to accept any offer graciously.

Being in the mix wasn't paying dividends or increasing the gate. I often wonder how close we were to being bumped again when Blitz and Gazal baled out.

It could well be his worst nightmare but luckily for us it's not up to him. A play-off challenge is up to the manager and players. Corney's job is to keep us solvent. If the suggestion is he wouldn't attempt to recklessly fund it that may also be true. There is evidence that in recent history about 25% of the Football League have gone bust chasing or maintaining that little 'dolly daydream'.

We have averaged 1.13 points over 29 games giving us 52 for the season. We have lost around 10 of those games by the odd goal. We have also played some decent football. I am expecting us to score a few more goals per game on the assumption that it would be more difficult to score less. I am banking on Stead being a success and staying 3 months and providing the height we sorely miss on long balls, free kicks and corners. A few goals off him would be a bonus. By nicking a few draws from defeat and a couple of wins out of draws I can see us getting to a comfortable 60pts.

There would be nobody to shake a bucket at by that point. They would all be it Aldi.

An excellent compilation of stats that should help us all to realise that our plight could be a hell of a lot worse. Chris Moore took a chance on better quality players on unaffordable wages to make a genuine attempt at gaining promotion. He was by no means the first and certainly not the last to fail miserably and disastrously - administration no less and that is where Chris Moore left us. Corney and Co rescued us from that administration. Its been no secret that they had their eye on land valuation, indeed there is no valid reason for a stranger to rescue/buy a football club for the sole benefit of its supporters. In due course they submitted a failed plan to build 600 housing units on part of it. This came after an absolutely necessary cull on our wage bill and just before the world recession. The ground development fiasco has been well documented and followed with dismay by the fans. Other parties share some of the blame for the lack of progress and I think would be unfair to assume that Corney has not had a fair crack at developing the ground - one way and an other. What would Corney have done differently with the benefit if hindsight? If I were him, it would be getting involved with the club in the first place. Having said that hindsight is a useless tool. Once you have taken a certain path in life there is no going back to square one to try another route for comparison. The entire fabric of time and place changes. For me a significant error he made that had a seriously detrimental effect on fans and likely also the players was knocking down the Ford Stand. Corney, himself has said he regrets it. What a soul destroying place Boundary Park has been for the last 5yrs. There is absolutely no way that we could find out where we would have been IF we had got promoted with Chris Moore. Premiership, Conference - who knows, think Luton and Portsmouth or Swansea and Southampton. There is nothing wrong with ambition - a better car, house, job but it does tend to need personal input to achieve. In terms of a higher league status and better ground we are depending on someone else's ambition, not forgetting their cash and a dollop of luck. It all depends what you realistically expect from someone how you react to their performance, understanding, indifference, anger. It's all there on a football fans forum. it wouldn't be a forum otherwise. I think Corney has done a pretty good job overall. I have no one else to compare him with and I am comfortable were we are. But we are overdue a decent season.

Done. I have ticked you up.

Superb result and performance from the lads. It highlights how frustration can turn to elation in this game we love and the team we support. I do hope some people aren't slightly disappointed because this win doesn't fit their argument. That makes it 6pts out of 9pts against top eight opposition. That would be a fair return IF we were in the top eight.

Why on earth would anyone make a substantial investment in a football club if they didn't expect to benefit from it? Even a fan would be on a ego trip and even they are very few and far between.

I have followed Latics since circa 1954. I have been there when we had to apply for re-election to the 4th Division (twice) and during the ‘pinch me years’ of the Premiership. IMO, a town our size should be able to support a L1 to mid-Championship status club and that is pretty much what we have done overthe life of the club and certainly in the last 60yrs. Financially the game has changed beyond recognition. I can remember during school holidays walking down Sheepfoot Lane to watch training. If I was early I would be accompanied by players with a rolled up towel and boots under their arm. Football thrived as a cheap hobby for the working class. That is irrefutable. Now it is a Corporate exercise in greed with the working classes being excluded. It is the hierarchy of the game that is now on another planet. That brings us to clubs like ours who are stuck in a League that is continuously frequented by ‘big city’ clubs that have failed miserably to keep up with the Joneses. There are so many in fact that it is impossible for them all to get out of our League in the same season. League1 is a very, very competitive League. Now, back to us and in particular the fans of our club. To around 3’000 of us Oldham Athletic is a keen hobby and source of entertainment (term used loosely). There are probably 1,000 to 1,500 who would watch us in the Conference. The rest up to ceiling of maybe 10,000 simply want to see an entertaining/winning team and can otherwise take it or leave it. That is perfectly understandable, even the diehards wouldn’t put up with poor product delivery from any other service provider other than their football club. I ran a business from being 28 until I was 60 and I cannot understand anyone putting substantial amounts of money into a football club. It doesn’t seem good business to me giving mostly mediocre managers funds to hire mercenary players who often become disinterested if they are not in the top 8 by December, but would probably liven up come March for a relegation dogfight. And that’s not to forget that football is not like a reliable and efficient production line. Your match day tactics are continually sabotaged by the opposition. So, here is a question: how much money does a Latics fan/potential fan expect a complete stranger to put into their once a fortnight hobby? For me the answer is ‘I don’t expect anything? Why should I?’ I am just grateful that someone is providing my Saturday fix. The people that don’t go have got it right and the vast majority quietly ignore the club like they would any other service provider who didn’t satisfy them. They wait for improvement. It’s not a mystery. What is a mystery is how diehard or wannabe fans (there is no easy way of telling) on here go overboard with their demands for investment or lack off it, retention of valuable players, bringing in highly prized players and a bigger stand than the one being built. Their stance does not incorporate any sense of business acumen, any introduction of capital and any credible knowledge of how to spot a successful manager. But the ‘Golden Nugget’ continually offered is ‘you need to invest to be successful. Well,‘NOT IN PROFFESSIONAL FOOTBALL YOU DON'T ‘or have you still not noticed? INVEST AT YOUR PERIL. I am waiting for LUCK with a manager and LUCK with a group of players and someone still here to pay their wages.

I believe there is a crowd on top of the Civic, queuing to jump. That could be the reason.

In the last 10yrs 30 clubs have been relegated from L1. Would that be because they hung onto their best players?

We have heard many similar prophesies over the last few years more often than 'The End Of The World Is Nigh'. All have been wrong. At least the 'End Of The World' protagonists put some effort into portraying their misgivings by marching around with a placard.

'IF', the fee is £150,000 plus add-ons and 'IF', other clubs were interested and 'IF' that is what we accepted, that 'IS' what he is worth. Tarky was a promising centre-back who was making steady progress until he had a barnstormer on national TV at Preston. The highlight of his performance was not defending (PNE, were under the cosh the whole match) but running through their midfield at will. He has continued to entertain in this way to a lesser extent since then. Virtually all (if not all) of these runs have ended with him being relieved of the ball around the penalty area. Entertaining and exciting? Yes! productive? No! Tarky's mistake on Tuesday was in stark contrast to the Wolves central defenders method of relentlessly putting the ball into touch in the same situations. Whatever fee he has gone for (and he wants to go) it will be, by and large, a fair valuation and conditions in the opinion of both clubs.

That's just so you can listen out for the Chaddy 'roar' and pop over at half time if things are going well.

"hopefully I will believe it at some point". You never will. You suggest (tongue in cheek) that the euphoria of the City and United fans after their respective comebacks was greater than that of the Latics fans on Saturday. This is not possible - you will have to trust me on that. There may have been only 492 of us left in the ground but the atmosphere was electric and the euphoricity (I made that word up) was measured at 10/10 on the Imoff Bonkers renowned, 'Until Thefatlady', euphoria measuring scale. It may well be that you were at the City and United games, if so you would probably been 'on your toes' long before the end there as well. Your doomed to keep just hearing about these remarkable events.