OAFC Own Merits

[dazlatic]

I once attended a course (stay with me please )where we identified our company's unique selling point. What makes us different from the competition?

 

Anyway, it struck a cord with me when I saw Rummy's question on the Milan Bar thread: What are the club's own merits?

 

Oldham Athletic's Own Merits: As I see them. I am sure there are many more.

 

* Tradition that is vital to many Fans in Oldham and exiled from Oldham. Our Fathers and Grandfathers (some sadly no longer with us) converged on Boundary Park with their Children and Grandchildren with anticipation and excitement (not to mention some dark, gallows humour and mirth thrown in!).

 

* Many ex players and managers obvious affection for the club and willing to put their selves out to help

 

* Our accessible local club

 

* Oldham Athletic's good times could be around the corner again. The bad times will make us stronger when they do arrive.

 

* Brightest new manager in the league

 

* Community - I remember Bernard Halford and Alan Hardy coming to our house in Chadderton to deliver Latics Lottery Tickets every week.

 

* Founder Members of The Premier League

 

* 35,000 Oldhamers at Wembley for the League Cup Final

 

* Willing to learn from the success of other clubs/ organisations to move forward

 

Feel free to add yours... The larger the contribution the better. We may be able to help the club with this one...

[seasidelatic]

I've not got much time before I leave for the pub but I'd say one of this club's best attributes is that we are still a proper, old-fashioned 'family club'. See the same faces week in, week out; parents bringing their kids as soon as they're old enough - as I intend to do one day - and trying to build the next generation of Latics fans.

 

I also think the club should be proud of its history, we've got a lot more to shout about in our past than a lot of local clubs.

[dazlatic]

I've not got much time before I leave for the pub but I'd say one of this club's best attributes is that we are still a proper, old-fashioned 'family club'. See the same faces week in, week out; parents bringing their kids as soon as they're old enough - as I intend to do one day - and trying to build the next generation of Latics fans.

 

I also think the club should be proud of its history, we've got a lot more to shout about in our past than a lot of local clubs.

 

100% agree.

[SholverBlue]

We're by no means the best fans in the World. Far from it, but we have dedicated fans who'll back us no matter what and no matter where.

 

Notts County is a good example, we was right down on our luck, but 500 Oldham fans turned up and backed us all the way to a 2-0 victory.

 

It just makes you smile a little when you think about how great our fans can be.

[GlossopLatic]

Slightly at a tangent here and more towards a footballing point of view, but what I think we do well at is kick starting the careers of players.

 

In Rick Holden's autobiography he talks how Joe Royle used to say that we are all at Oldham because their is something wrong with us. While that team included players who had been somewhat cast aside by the bigger clubs inparticular Everton and Man City it never made us a feeder club to those teams. Today our new captain Dean Furman was a cast off of Glasgow Rangers and Chelsea, Our one major summer signing was a 21 year old released by sunderland,and our player of the season was ex Man united reserve Kieran Lee, you can argue that Zander Diamond has come here to kickstart his caeer also.

 

While the prospect of having to compete with City and United causes us all sorts of problems it does offer us one big opportunity. This is that you will not be seeing too many players at either club come through the youth system and go into the first team. That means a club like ourselves who are close by geographically can offer these lads released by those clubs a second chance without having to upfroot from their homes as many of them maybe local. Its an opportunity we should take advantage off.

[OldhamSheridan]

I think Phil Morris is the best example of that at the club at the moment. Struggling to make a career for himself, then ends up at Oldham. Poor bastard.

 

 

Oldham? It's all about getting :censored:faced at away games isn't it?

[Lookers_Carl]

Slightly at a tangent here and more towards a footballing point of view, but what I think we do well at is kick starting the careers of players.

 

In Rick Holden's autobiography he talks how Joe Royle used to say that we are all at Oldham because their is something wrong with us. While that team included players who had been somewhat cast aside by the bigger clubs inparticular Everton and Man City it never made us a feeder club to those teams. Today our new captain Dean Furman was a cast off of Glasgow Rangers and Chelsea, Our one major summer signing was a 21 year old released by sunderland,and our player of the season was ex Man united reserve Kieran Lee, you can argue that Zander Diamond has come here to kickstart his caeer also.

 

While the prospect of having to compete with City and United causes us all sorts of problems it does offer us one big opportunity. This is that you will not be seeing too many players at either club come through the youth system and go into the first team. That means a club like ourselves who are close by geographically can offer these lads released by those clubs a second chance without having to upfroot from their homes as many of them maybe local. Its an opportunity we should take advantage off.

 

I would slightly disagree there re who we are in competition with. Maybe City, but not so much United. I know a fair few reds and blues who have had to give up their season tickets at their respective clubs due to financial reasons. Could a working class family afford to take their children to City week in week out??? Put it this way, if they could they must be making some serious sacrifices. I have got absolutely no doubt whatsoever too that the prices at City will rise, and rise considerably, over the next five years, and become even further out of reach for a working class family. Wheras even next season, I can't see the cost of a season ticket at Boundary Park rising more than £20.

 

Fully agree with what Daz_Latic said though. The problem is that the club lacks the commercial nous to get this message out. I have always been taught if you want something, go out and get it, rather than wait for it to come to you. The club seems to have an attitude of waiting for things to come to them and complaining when they dont, ie moaning about a lack of fans coming through the gates, but doing nothing about it. The odd game at £2 isnt going to bring the fans back all of a sudden.

[GlossopLatic]

I would slightly disagree there re who we are in competition with. Maybe City, but not so much United. I know a fair few reds and blues who have had to give up their season tickets at their respective clubs due to financial reasons. Could a working class family afford to take their children to City week in week out??? Put it this way, if they could they must be making some serious sacrifices. I have got absolutely no doubt whatsoever too that the prices at City will rise, and rise considerably, over the next five years, and become even further out of reach for a working class family. Wheras even next season, I can't see the cost of a season ticket at Boundary Park rising more than £20.

 

Fully agree with what Daz_Latic said though. The problem is that the club lacks the commercial nous to get this message out. I have always been taught if you want something, go out and get it, rather than wait for it to come to you. The club seems to have an attitude of waiting for things to come to them and complaining when they dont, ie moaning about a lack of fans coming through the gates, but doing nothing about it. The odd game at £2 isnt going to bring the fans back all of a sudden.

 

People being priced out of OT and whatever they are calling Eastlands these days is another opportunity you are right. Whether we have the commercial nous to exploit that is another matter, a new stadium would help alot here.

[Stevie_J]

My stag do involved taking in a Latics match and the rest of the party were (IIRC) all Prem fans. They loved it; how close you are to the pitch, being able to smell the grass and a well-fought game.

 

They quite enjoyed rowdily upsetting some of the Main Stand clientele too!

 

I think that should be our angle - good honest 'proper' football. Come and smell the grass!

[beag_teeets]

Some great points on this thread!

 

I remember the first time I took my now wife to BP, it was the game that Betsy scored his screamer against the Monkey-Hangers and she loved it. She'd only been to Old Trafford before as a relative has seats there and she said it was very different at BP "more real". I took a City fan this season to the cheap game, he'd never been to a game before despite knowing more about footie than most people, he's now been to COMS quite a few times but remarks that BP and our "matchday experience" has that extra something that you don't get at the larger clubs.

 

If we compare it to a music concert, most music fans would say they would prefer to see a band in a small venue compared to a ginormodome arena. This does give us a USP compared to our larger neighbours that surely a capable marketing department would be able to exploit.

 

I've seen things described as "so close you can touch it" but this wouldn't work with football with all the ground regulations about pitch invasions..etc.. but a mind far more creative than mine could cobble something along those lines.

 

As for the "family club", I really want to cling to this however "Die Ricketts die" and a few similar unsavoury incidents make me doubt whether this is true anymore. Same as the massive levels of grumbling and moaning as a 19 year old 3rd division player in their second season as a pro hoofs the ball nearer to the corner flag than the goal.

 

I love Royle's comments, never heard that before, most of us in the crowd have something wrong with us and that is why we are at Latics. Without pushing us into a feeder club status we should be able to make more of this whilst we are where we are, if it enables us to get players to come to us and get us into the Championship then we could revisit it. I've long argued that we should be scouting the kids who get released by the north-west clubs that are higher up the league than us.

 

I suppose not that long ago pretty much everyone who goes to BP lived not that far away, probably in Oldham and as such the sense of community and belonging to Oldham was strong, these days with a larger number of people only setting foot in Oldham on matchdays that sense of belonging has lessened. The club should be doing more to make people feel part of the club, replace the sense of belonging to the town that one of belonging to the club, how? I don't know, I work in IT not branding/marketing.

 

After saying what the club is doing wrong it is only fair to say what they are doing right, Dickov's appointment could well prove to be a masterstroke, no he hasn't achieved anything yet beyond a smile on a few people's faces but the way he conducts himself and presents the club to the media and beyond is a joy to see. He may have been a cheap appointment but fair play to however many Amigos were left at the time, Dickov is conducting his wider duties well.

 

The much maligned Alan Hardy, I can't think of that many other chief execs who could tell you how much the pies are, probably the meat content of said pies, respond personally to correspondence and keep the club afloat whilst knowing the best age to drain the blood out of first borns. He might have looked at your cat funny in 1956 but the man is a credit to the club.

 

Maybe the recent redesign of the badge is a first step down a long, long road, mistakes have been made but hopefully they are being put right. I loved that design of the Failsworth stadium appeared to be modelled on the famous Oldham mills, if we ever get to build that stadium, wherever it ends up I hope those towers are incorporated into the design. Perhaps we could intertwine our heritage as a powerhouse of the industrial revolution, "Great things come out of Oldham", "Oldham, not just the home of the tubular bandage", "Oldham, the power to succeed", as I said, I'm in IT not marketing.

 

We all know where we want to end up and we are starting from a pretty bad place, this doesn't mean the journey is too hard to start but we have to start somewhere, it might as well be here.