RichmondLatic

I'm going to get one as I need something visible to cycle to work in - perfect excuse!

IF we got relegated after losing to Southampton on the final day of the great escape season

IF John Sheridan hadnt made THAT challenge giving us the division one title

IF Corazzin had scored instead of hitting the bar against qpr in the play off semis at there place

IF Hughes had of hit the bar in the FA cup semi

IF we lost to reading on the final day of the season, getting relegated to the basement division

 

There are so many important moments in our history that define what OAFC is today. but if they happened a slightly different way, could we be far better or even far worse off than we are now? If we had got relegated in the great escape season, would we have bounced straight back up? or would we have dropped like a stone like we eventually did anyway?

 

I had this conversation some weeks ago in the pub before a game, and people opinions vary wildly. The thread about The guardian artical just brought it back to me.

If Sheridan hadn't made that tackle, then none of the subsequent events would have happened as it would have altered the space-time continuum.

Have stolen Tangerine. Absolute disgrace. fluou yellow my arse. Bring back tangerine! - Latics true away kit.

i can honestly say that some of the above have surprised me, but that's the age factor and I'm obviously really, really old. Each to his/her own. For me

 

Goram

 

Irwin Jobson Futcher Barrett

 

Ward Henry Redfearn Groves

 

Ritchie (god no.1) Stainrod (god no.2)

 

subs

 

Warhurst

Palmer

Holden

Milligan

Bunn

 

What a subs bench!!!

Thats the best one so far...

Ill go

Goram

Irwin Jobson Barrett Barlow

Ward Henry Milligan Wright

Ritchie Quinn

Subs

Marshall, Holden R, Palmer, Warhurst, McBride, Hallworth, Sheridan

Nickname 'Toxteth'?

That we have given up on this season. We can still make the playoffs IMO. Unlikley, but lets face it, more likely at this point than staying up looked in 92/93...

Mike Fillery, Derek Brazil, Neil Firm, Joe McBride, Derrick Parker and Peter Skipper

You know what I am going to say, we are a crappy northern little team, always have been but we got lucky had a few good years that gave our fans delusions of grandeur. Since then we have been on the slide with a few good blips.

 

The football this season is no better or no worse than it has ever been. Heres a random selection of players that I can remember from my times watching latics - Rickers, McNiven, Allot first time, Glenn Keeley, Tipton, Whats his face Currie, Mike Cecere, Darren McDonagh, Big fat Donachie, a past it Kilcline, Chris Makin - (I will come back to him) Carl Serrant, Gerry Creaney, Paul Molden, Neil McDonald, Wayne Gill, Matty Appleby, Mark Arber, Tore Pederson, John Kelly, Lance Key.

 

Hardly a list of the greatest players to grace a pitch. Why has it become so fashionable for people to suddenly say that enough is enough? Why now? Why not when it was really bad? And if it is so bad why the need to write at length on the internet that the straw has been broken and either you aren't renewing, or coming again, or going to call your first born after the 1987 side? Why not just sidle off in to the non-attending masses and make ethusiastic harumphs whenever someone at work or in the pub mentions football. - No one is really that interested, Hardy and TTAs will simply look at the balance sheet come June and say to the manager that he can bring 3 players in and not the 5 he was promised earlier.

 

Why the need to look for a massive conspiracy that Shez has lost the dressing room or that one of the players doesn't "respect" the manager or whatever.

 

Where were the "He can't attract players" calls when we were down to 10 fit pros under Moore before he gave Taylor his debut? I don't remember that one, we were crying out for him to look at the youth rather than bring in another wage. Were we too busy beating Moore with other sticks about his off the field womanising or his latest tart dumping his belongings at Chapel Rd as she was kicking him out as she was fed up of him. - Do we jsut enjoy slagging managers off? We successfuly got rid of Talbot and Moore now do we think that unless we get instant success we should flex our muscles and get rid of the manager?

 

The can't get players line has been through enough times, the 3 candidates for player of the season are all Sheridan buys add Gregan, Davies, Macca, Clarke and his goals that helped get us in to the play-offs last season..

 

This year was never going to be as successful as last season, the majority of two year contracts signed by Moore left and had to be replaced, next season is the equivalent of last season as the players will have had a full year together and a summer. Of the team that started today only 3 started the first game of the season, in one way we have been lucky with the injuries this year as it means the bulk of the side that starts next season will be pretty settled from this year, the spine of Crossley, Hazell, Allot, Hughes will be.

 

Now it seems fashionable to berate Shez over his innability to keep physios, one got a better job offer and the other decided it wasn't for him, what should the club do? Go to the hospital and ask a couple up there whether they fancy working Saturdays and the odd Tuesday with a few hours mid week treating injured footie players? In any other business if a position was vacated twice in quick succession they would revise their selection process to make sure that their next appointment was the right man and stayed in post for a longer period. Nah, sod it, get any old person in, as long as they can do Thai massage then everyones happy.

For me it isn't all doom and gloom this year, the sunshine and light comes from the young lads that have come through and at times done mans jobs even though they have had the precitable dips too. I said I would come back to Chris Makin, a lad who came through the ranks in to the first team at a time when we were . The crowd got on his back and he was a target for the boo boys. When his contract was to be renewed he "did a Porter" and signed on a free for Marseille and we got nowt, he did quite well out of it, signing on fee, decent wage and a free appartment overlooking the harbour. He came back to England after his season abroad and has played the rest of his career at a higher level than us. A player that for many in our crowd wasn't good enough to wear the shirt has been good enough to play higher than we have for over 10 years:

 

http://www.soccerbase.com/players_details.sd?playerid=4751

 

I mention Makin as there are a few lads in our current side that I can see this happening to, the stick they get from the "fans" is unbelievable and if I was them I wouldn't sign another contract at Oldham either, in fact I would do a Porter and us right over. Then they will get called Judas..etc..etc.. but can you honestly blame them? I bet like Makin they enjoy the rest of their career and the appartment over looking the harbour rather than getting dogs abuse at BP.

 

I was jealous of the Milwall fans today, those were some of the best fans we have had at BP for a while, they sang and all stood together the "No one likes us..." and the "ooooohh" that went on for ages and the " ground no fans" or "You're supposed to be at home/give a " were top draw as they were so right. This coming from a club that has yo-yoed between this league and the championship plus got to a cup final, a bit similar to ourselves. They don't give a what league they are in or whether they are playing fancy football or if the manager tucks the players in at night with a cup of cocoa they just wanted the team to win they pootle off back down the road with the points.

 

What did our fans do? Sit on arses and do cock all, there were about 2 songs but hundreds of "ffs taylor, get to the line" - sometimes when the ball was on the other side of the pitch! Or the "Bloody hell Eardley" yet were happy to over look when Stam drops his or Lomax has his first bad game by his good standards. I bet Constantine will aks Kilkenny if he is talking about the same set of fans when he gets back to Leeds.

 

Well, I don't expect anyone to have read this, it is all nonsense, Shez out, I am not renewing next season, it is garbage, sort it out, bloody hell eardley. baaaa baaaa

Great post pal

Bring Back Pukka

 

You are either playing devil's advocate, on acid, or just a poor misguided fool. Sheridan in? You're having a giraffe. Worst I've seen since Warnock. Clueless, uneducated, Sunday League manager.

 

And I don't care how many World Cup matches he has played in.

You speaketh utter my friend. Yep lets sack him and start the whole process again - great idea.

Changing managers is an absolute necessity if things are going wrong - on and off the pitch.

 

Talbot suffered from an excessive weight of expectation I feel, he did miracles at Rubbish and Dustbins but had a lot of money from Mr. Griggs to do it. He didn't have a lot to play with up here and he suffered for it, but for me he would have kept us up despite some dire form in patches. It is subjective though and each person has their own opinion.

 

Moore replaced him and it may just be fair to say that from day one I wasn't in support of his appointment (like we didn't know what to expect from him tactically). The thing that gets me about the Ronnie apologists (especially the ones that continually slate Talbot) was did it really get any better? In my humble opinion no it didn't, in fact I think it got worse. Torquay at home and Chesterfield away still gall me thinking about the lack of anything that could be called going down fighting. And we were going down. The day we played Chesterfield was the most abject I have ever felt coming out of a game, I even phoned my Torquay supporting mate and told him no worries we will be in the bottom 4 next week not you lot. It was my bloody birthday too. We survived because Pogs put in a top drawer performance against Bradford.

 

So be it though - I was glad we survived, and Ronnie the perceived saviour, got a crack of the whip. He had a clear out and on the pitch it got better positionally but anything to do with playing entertaining football went straight out of the window. It was a shocking season to watch football following the mighty. Awful performance after awful performance came and went, the treatment of some of the players (Butcher at Barnsley will live with me for ever) was shocking, but they were doing what the manager told them to do.

 

He got us into a decent position and failed quite dramatically. He is still doing the same thing on the Wirral now.

 

I am no saint when airing my views, many of you will remember the night I completely lost it after arguing for months on end about Moores tenureship on JKL. It was always the fault of the players, the fans, the tea lady, the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, the sun was shining too low over the Chaddy - anything but Ronnies fault. He drove fans away from the club in their droves. The better players were left out of the team through personality clashes; I am going to cite the treatment of Killen who had been in a rare run of being fit and scoring goals, Ronnie didn't like him and he was left picking socks up in the dressing room at Chasetown despite being in probably the best form of his Latics career. I know loads will disagree with this point, but when fit Killen was a bloody good striker and to constantly use him as a sub or drop him was Ronnies biggest failing (of many).

 

Anyway, our owners see an even bigger black hole and Ronnie just has to go. So they boot him to somewhere that is more appreciative of his jurrassic formula.

 

So Shez takes up the reins.

 

Now I don't believe all this about it was Ronnies team. If it was he would have been there marshalling them from the touchline. Shez was picking the players, forming the tactics and in general got us back to some sort of style of play that was entertaining to watch. It was Shezs team that he picked from players that were available.

 

Think this one: Chasetown away under Ronnie vs Scunthorpe away under Shez. What would you rather watch? An extreme example I know, but indicative of the way that our current boss v our previous boss believe football should be played.

 

We hoped for promotion but (eventually) sneaked into the play offs. We were a good side, but we were beaten by a better side - the Lashers were on a roll and fair play to them for such an awe inspiring run toward the end of the season.

 

The agents then took over and Shez was really stuck between a rock and a hard place in regards to our two best players; Porter and Wellens.

 

We lost out on both counts very late in the day and I think he has done his best in trying to bring players in. He doesn't want someone here who can't do a job, maybe someties that job is just filling in for a few weeks or months; but I feel so much talent was taken away from him without him having very much input that it was always going to be difficult to follow last seasons efforts.

 

Much like Talbot, I think after last seasons exploits, Shez has a weight of expectation hanging over him.

 

I think he is trying to rebuild, but given his financial constraints it is a tough ask to do in one season.

 

Slowly, slowly catchee monkey.

 

There is one way out of this division in the upward sense, and that is to play football.

 

Despite the highs and the failings of this season, I can't think of a better man to be in charge of us right now.

 

Shez in (despite the fact he still picks Chris bloody Taylor).

 

KtF,

 

Derek.

Spot on Derek, cept I don't agree on Taylor...still all will be revealed in time.

Neil Adams played for us in 3 different decades...how interesting.

Fair play to him. Good player..we could do with him now.

I'm not blaming him at all, just reporting what he said. The town will lose its football club and will die. This is as sad a night as I can remember.

They would be mad not to appeal as it will go through when passed to the minister. Will just cost a few more quid thats all.

Dont worry. We will appeal and it goes out of the council's hands. Appeal will succeed as government initiative is to build more houses/flats. It will happen.

Brilliant player, second only to Ritchie in my fave evers. Second goal in the reply v Southampton 1990 absolutely superb

Hello Richmondlatic, please fill in the form and validation will be completed.

 

Name ? Dan

 

Location ? Richmond

How Long Supporting the Tics ? 26

Best away match you've been to ? City 91/92

All Time Greatest Player ? Stitch

Biggest Rivals (in your eyes) ? Swansea!

 

Cheers,

Rummy.

Hello