oafcprozac Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 (edited) I was going to write a long article on TTA failures etc… but let;'s be honest we've been round that way before. So what do we do? I'm not happy to sit back and allow the club to continue as the joke it currently is. The onfield stuff is immaterial, it's time serious questions were asked just where Corney sees this club heading. The Trust as we know is a lame duck that will not get into the issues or ask the questions we want answering so what do we do? Sit on our hands and say there's nothing we can do? Walk away? Or try to force the club to be sold to ownership that can move the club forward. There's interest, I know there has been last summer but the asking price was ridiculous! So what do we do? Because the way I see it there's no stomach for a fight left amongst our fanbase. We need galvanising into action, it's probably already too late and I fear the fanbase will simply sit back and do what they did when the town allowed ORLFC to die. If there's no desire to see the club move forward, what's the point? I sat there yesterday and in the second half barely said a word, After watching the club for 26 seasons, I just feel resigned to our fate and feel so :censored:ing helpless. If there's no desire to help the club move on from the disaster that has been TTA ownership, then I really do think this might be my last season - certainly for home games anyway. Edited March 18, 2012 by oafcprozac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JA11K Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I don't know what we can do, but I know that I will never stop going to games - yes it can be depressing, yes it can be infuriating, but that's what makes the good things so much better when they come. Maybe we'll never get any higher than we are now, but I'm an Oldham fan and nothing can change that, so I'm going to follow my club whatever happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oafcprozac Posted March 18, 2012 Author Share Posted March 18, 2012 I don't know what we can do, but I know that I will never stop going to games - yes it can be depressing, yes it can be infuriating, but that's what makes the good things so much better when they come. Maybe we'll never get any higher than we are now, but I'm an Oldham fan and nothing can change that, so I'm going to follow my club whatever happens. I admire you for that, I remember what our club once was so know the potential it has - i'm not referring to success, i'm referring to the potential off the field. It's been mis-managed for so long that it needs re-building from the bottom up. Without that we are dead in the water and I fear you will not be able to follow your whatever happens as under the present ownership there will be no club or ground - certainly not one of the club's own in Oldham anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnthonyOAFC Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Yes, It's depressing at times and yes our ground is not looking good but point is that we are all fans of this football club and should stick by them no matter what. Dickov is doing what he can with a small squad and a low budget. I'm not going to stop going to games or stop supporting Oldham. We've got to get through the crap and stay positive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JA11K Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I'm only 16 so I don't remember those times, but what I will say is that I think Corney is doing his best with a bad situation - I can't see why anyone would want to invest in a team towards the bottom of League One and a crap ground. He's trying, for example the Golden Ticket, so I don't think he's mis-managing as such, but there's only so much he can do with not much money and a dwindling support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobOAFC Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I admire you for that, I remember what our club once was so know the potential it has - i'm not referring to success, i'm referring to the potential off the field. It's been mis-managed for so long that it needs re-building from the bottom up. Without that we are dead in the water and I fear you will not be able to follow your whatever happens as under the present ownership there will be no club or ground - certainly not one of the club's own in Oldham anyway. To be fair Prozac, we are starting to re-build from the bottom up. We've got Jenny in as Commercial manager now, Broady as Head of Sales/Marketing etc. It's coming round slowly, but we are re-building from the bottom now, even if we're currently going quite slow.. Also in your first post you mentioned the asking price was to high, could you say how much or around how much TTA wanted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Scratch2000uk Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Got to feel for the three amigos, economic downturn, backwards council, NIMBY's, It's a wonder Corney is still here to be honest. The trust is a joke. Oldham fans will come back when there is some light at the end of the tunnel, as it stands, they are staring into the abyss. The solution?. Some outside investment with ambitions. Short term isn't so easy, some of my ideas would be , Free admission to school/college kids, match day bus to and from Oldham, Merchandise scarves, badges, flags, programs etc. being sold on the day, inside and out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opinions4u Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 It all comes down to money. As individuals all we can do is hand over our cash and watch as many home games as possible. Bring along as many mates as possible. Buy as many shirts as possible. Sponsor a player's socks or whatever it is. Use official transport to get to away games. Buy a half time draw ticket. Match programme. Enjoy the ocassional "pie and pint" offer. Whatever. As a collective there's The Trust. But what, in all truth, can it do? PlayerShare is all well and good but the reality of that is half a wage for half a season. Kuqi's goals will probably be enough to keep us up - so yes it's made a massive difference on the pitch - but other than that and funding the occasional lawnmower I don't really see what it's able to do. Stockport's Trust took ownership of their club and ran it in to the ground. You could perhaps set up a rival organisation - but if your intention is to buy the club for a quid and build a stand you need 3,500 people to give £2k each. Count me out. Fan on the board? Lovely. But if he's not "Loaded lottery winner on the board" it's never going to be more than that. So let's say you're a rich man and you persuade TTA to sell the club for £1 and write off what they're owed (or convert the debt in to some sort of lease or rental of the BP site). You then spend £7m on a shiny new stand. How are you going to generate an income on the back of that investment that (1) keeps a half decent football team playing and (2) gives you a return on your investment? Buggered if I know. Best hope is for Prozac to win the Euromillions, keep £10m for his family, invest £10m directly in to Latics and split the rest between sex, alcohol, drugs and a long term investment trust to deliver a guaranteed income of £1m pa (indexed) for the football club forever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al_bro Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 The club is being run to a budge determined by the support. As long as this is the case it will take a miracle to get promoted, but it would not be difficult to be relegated. It's a vicious circle, fans are drifting away because they realise we can't get anywhere, therefore the budget drops each year. Don't forget Corney puts around £1m of his own money into the club each year. How many others who have no real connection with the town or the club would do that. The only way out of our current position is for someone who really cares about the club with more money than sense were to take over and give the club millions, as well as rebuilding the stadium. Then the fans may return, but unfortunately not enough to sustain the club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lookers_Carl Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 (edited) A good post prozac, and agree with you that the onfield material is irrelevant. Whilst I have certainly sat out the Dickov era to the point where I no longer consider myself a supporter of the club, rather a very distant follower, but from the games I have seen its nowhere near as bad as the :censored: I seen under colonel cautious and mediocre martin. Oldham is not my home town, but it was my nearest club. And I made the decision to follow Oldham as I have always liked supporting the underdog and even at an early age, did not like the arrogance of Man U fans, or the bitterness of City fans. I probably stopped enjoying coming to Oldham once the broadway stand was knocked down, what kept me coming back was (and yes I am deadly serious here).....Failsworth. The opportunity for a new stadium, fresh start, bringing the club into the here and now. Up until then I still firmly believed this club could move forward. The straw that broke the camels back for me was when the decision was made to redevelope Boundary Park stand by stand as opposed to pursuing a new stadium and fresh start, and being honest with myself, this is something I am still very bitter about and will never buy into, much like those fans on here who never bought into Failsworth. That is when I 'lost the faith' that this club can grow to re-establish itself in a higher division. But the way I am trying to look at it is all the very best to those who will continue to support the club, but this is no longer the club for me. Hence I can try to make the following points as neutrally as possible. To address your question more directly, fans need to look a bit closer to home and address their own shortcomings before they are in a position to do anything. One thing I think fans can do (and again this won't be popular) is enough with the :censored:ing nostalgia!!!!! How the hell can the club move forward if the fans are still stuck in the early 90's??? I will use two examples, one of which I noticed is the various posts regarding to the anniversaries of one off victories 19 years ago. Firstly, its a very sad state of affairs when fans of the club are still clinging onto that nearly 20 years down the line. And the second example being the end of a post I remember vividly on here posted by Pukka, which was as follows. One thing thats seriously put me off Latics in the last few years is the fans and the inbred mentality. Everything was better and no matter what we do it isn't as good as it was. At one game this season Dean Furman was getting dogs abuse by the bloke behind me and I said "what are you going on about? Hes been our best player for weeks" His response "Hes no Nick Henry is he?" At that point I just started laughing. If the club is to move forward, then the fans it has left needs to let go of the pinch me seasons and premier days, focus on where the club is now and how to move forward rather than looking back all the time, and ditch the inbred mentality like the one above in Pukka's example. I sometimes honestly think some of the older generation of fans forget that the younger football fans in the town did not see the pinch me season, and for those who have made the decision to support Oldham their best memories as Latics fans will probably be from two giant killing acts vs city or everton, or two failed playoff semi finals. Some people need to think about that before slagging the younger football fans in the town for choosing to support either City or United as opposed to supporting a club that plays at a three sided :censored: tip, offers a terrible match day experience compared to many other clubs, and that is utterly incapable of making any kind of sustainable progress. Fair play to the minority that have decided to support Latics despite this, that takes dedication and I am not going to knock that for a second, but nor will I knock those who choose City or United considering the state of Latics. A second thing I think would not do Latics fans any harm is to get with the times re price of games. Before having a pop at the prices Latics charge please do some research, and you will see 1) Latics are amongst the cheapest in this league as far as admission prices go, and are cheaper than some L2 and conference teams 2) The fairytale prices some fans are quoting, like £150 season tickets or £10-15 are not sustainable. Even at conference level, Grimsby charge £18 entrance, fleetwood charge £15-18 for non members, and stockport charge £16-18 a game. If supporters want £10-15 admission so badly then they need to realise what comes with it, which is Oldham Athletic playing in the BSP North or lower. A third thing I think supporters of the club could do is think outside the box, and realise that the club is in competition with City and United for supporters and that the club needs to offer these fans a reason to make Latics their club of choice instead of City and United. With a fully redevoped stadium, Latics would be able to offer something what City and United wont be able to, which is affordable live football in comfortable surroundings. I have absolutely no doubt that the price of football at Manchester City will have to rise in order to sustain the current squad, and United is already pretty much out of reach to your ordinary working class family. If Latics can offer entertaining football at a respectable level (ie league football preferably above league 2) in comfortable surroundings at an affordable price, then they may be onto something. Edited March 18, 2012 by Lookers_Carl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oh Heck C-Beck Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Well said Carl couldnt have put it better myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oh Heck C-Beck Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I was going to write a long article on TTA failures etc… but let;'s be honest we've been round that way before. So what do we do? I'm not happy to sit back and allow the club to continue as the joke it currently is. The onfield stuff is immaterial, it's time serious questions were asked just where Corney sees this club heading. The Trust as we know is a lame duck that will not get into the issues or ask the questions we want answering so what do we do? Sit on our hands and say there's nothing we can do? Walk away? Or try to force the club to be sold to ownership that can move the club forward. There's interest, I know there has been last summer but the asking price was ridiculous! So what do we do? Because the way I see it there's no stomach for a fight left amongst our fanbase. We need galvanising into action, it's probably already too late and I fear the fanbase will simply sit back and do what they did when the town allowed ORLFC to die. If there's no desire to see the club move forward, what's the point? I sat there yesterday and in the second half barely said a word, After watching the club for 26 seasons, I just feel resigned to our fate and feel so :censored:ing helpless. If there's no desire to help the club move on from the disaster that has been TTA ownership, then I really do think this might be my last season - certainly for home games anyway. This attitude really :censored:s me off. As someone to young to remember the pinch me seasons TTA have provided some of the best years for me supporting Latics, with attitudes like yours Prozac no wonder this club is going to the wall! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opinions4u Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 This attitude really :censored:s me off. As someone to young to remember the pinch me seasons TTA have provided some of the best years for me supporting Latics, with attitudes like yours Prozac no wonder this club is going to the wall! To be fair, when we pulled it back to 3-2 I didn't really get the buzz that I should have got. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lookers_Carl Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 To be fair, when we pulled it back to 3-2 I didn't really get the buzz that I should have got. The last time I can honestly say I was pissed off as a result of a latics defeat was losing to Dave Penney's Bristol Rovers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edhunteruk Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I was going to write a long article on TTA failures etc… but let;'s be honest we've been round that way before. So what do we do? I'm not happy to sit back and allow the club to continue as the joke it currently is. The onfield stuff is immaterial, it's time serious questions were asked just where Corney sees this club heading. The Trust as we know is a lame duck that will not get into the issues or ask the questions we want answering so what do we do? Sit on our hands and say there's nothing we can do? Walk away? Or try to force the club to be sold to ownership that can move the club forward. There's interest, I know there has been last summer but the asking price was ridiculous! So what do we do? Because the way I see it there's no stomach for a fight left amongst our fanbase. We need galvanising into action, it's probably already too late and I fear the fanbase will simply sit back and do what they did when the town allowed ORLFC to die. If there's no desire to see the club move forward, what's the point? I sat there yesterday and in the second half barely said a word, After watching the club for 26 seasons, I just feel resigned to our fate and feel so :censored:ing helpless. If there's no desire to help the club move on from the disaster that has been TTA ownership, then I really do think this might be my last season - certainly for home games anyway. i think its fair to say the fans can do nothing more than turn up and support the team and manager.....and hope we get either some success or investment....the remaining amigo wants out....but why should he go on the cheap,he wants his cash back,and quite right as well.. you have had a downer on the club and board for a few years now,if its that bad for you id walk away for a while.....imstead of moaning and critisising. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Sinnott Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 i think its fair to say the fans can do nothing more than turn up and support the team and manager.....and hope we get either some success or investment....the remaining amigo wants out....but why should he go on the cheap,he wants his cash back,and quite right as well.. you have had a downer on the club and board for a few years now,if its that bad for you id walk away for a while.....imstead of moaning and critisising. Can you blame him? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bowl Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I'm fed up coming on this :censored:ing website and reading people's sob stories. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opinions4u Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 It's not so much a sob story - more reaching out to try and find inspiration to change something that's broken. Won't work though. If it was possible our combined pointless musings of the past few years would already have achieved it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy_Fent Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 A good post prozac, and agree with you that the onfield material is irrelevant. Whilst I have certainly sat out the Dickov era to the point where I no longer consider myself a supporter of the club, rather a very distant follower, but from the games I have seen its nowhere near as bad as the :censored: I seen under colonel cautious and mediocre martin. Oldham is not my home town, but it was my nearest club. And I made the decision to follow Oldham as I have always liked supporting the underdog and even at an early age, did not like the arrogance of Man U fans, or the bitterness of City fans. I probably stopped enjoying coming to Oldham once the broadway stand was knocked down, what kept me coming back was (and yes I am deadly serious here).....Failsworth. The opportunity for a new stadium, fresh start, bringing the club into the here and now. Up until then I still firmly believed this club could move forward. The straw that broke the camels back for me was when the decision was made to redevelope Boundary Park stand by stand as opposed to pursuing a new stadium and fresh start, and being honest with myself, this is something I am still very bitter about and will never buy into, much like those fans on here who never bought into Failsworth. That is when I 'lost the faith' that this club can grow to re-establish itself in a higher division. But the way I am trying to look at it is all the very best to those who will continue to support the club, but this is no longer the club for me. Hence I can try to make the following points as neutrally as possible. To address your question more directly, fans need to look a bit closer to home and address their own shortcomings before they are in a position to do anything. One thing I think fans can do (and again this won't be popular) is enough with the :censored:ing nostalgia!!!!! How the hell can the club move forward if the fans are still stuck in the early 90's??? I will use two examples, one of which I noticed is the various posts regarding to the anniversaries of one off victories 19 years ago. Firstly, its a very sad state of affairs when fans of the club are still clinging onto that nearly 20 years down the line. And the second example being the end of a post I remember vividly on here posted by Pukka, which was as follows. If the club is to move forward, then the fans it has left needs to let go of the pinch me seasons and premier days, focus on where the club is now and how to move forward rather than looking back all the time, and ditch the inbred mentality like the one above in Pukka's example. I sometimes honestly think some of the older generation of fans forget that the younger football fans in the town did not see the pinch me season, and for those who have made the decision to support Oldham their best memories as Latics fans will probably be from two giant killing acts vs city or everton, or two failed playoff semi finals. Some people need to think about that before slagging the younger football fans in the town for choosing to support either City or United as opposed to supporting a club that plays at a three sided :censored: tip, offers a terrible match day experience compared to many other clubs, and that is utterly incapable of making any kind of sustainable progress. Fair play to the minority that have decided to support Latics despite this, that takes dedication and I am not going to knock that for a second, but nor will I knock those who choose City or United considering the state of Latics. A second thing I think would not do Latics fans any harm is to get with the times re price of games. Before having a pop at the prices Latics charge please do some research, and you will see 1) Latics are amongst the cheapest in this league as far as admission prices go, and are cheaper than some L2 and conference teams 2) The fairytale prices some fans are quoting, like £150 season tickets or £10-15 are not sustainable. Even at conference level, Grimsby charge £18 entrance, fleetwood charge £15-18 for non members, and stockport charge £16-18 a game. If supporters want £10-15 admission so badly then they need to realise what comes with it, which is Oldham Athletic playing in the BSP North or lower. A third thing I think supporters of the club could do is think outside the box, and realise that the club is in competition with City and United for supporters and that the club needs to offer these fans a reason to make Latics their club of choice instead of City and United. With a fully redevoped stadium, Latics would be able to offer something what City and United wont be able to, which is affordable live football in comfortable surroundings. I have absolutely no doubt that the price of football at Manchester City will have to rise in order to sustain the current squad, and United is already pretty much out of reach to your ordinary working class family. If Latics can offer entertaining football at a respectable level (ie league football preferably above league 2) in comfortable surroundings at an affordable price, then they may be onto something. I don't think giving that post a positive vote gives it enough credit, you've highlighted some realistic points which a lot of people are too afraid to say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lookers_Carl Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I don't think giving that post a positive vote gives it enough credit, you've highlighted some realistic points which a lot of people are too afraid to say. Thanks :-) I was actually debating whether to propose 'has getting to the premier league done Oldham Athletic more harm than good in the grand scheme of things' but I thought that was pushing it a bit, and not even sure of the answer to that myself Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BP1960 Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Could this sort of initative work for Latics ? http://www.socialenterpriselive.com/section/news/community/20120317/fc-united-manchester-hits-%C2%A316m-community-shares-target Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbs1trg Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Our current predicament isn't unique to Latics - teams in the Football League have been living beyond their means for some time. The rise of mega-rich club owners in the 1990s/2000s forced up wages to an unsustainable level - the more there were, the worse it got. Of course we're now in the situation where revenues have been falling for some time, punters just don't have the same disposable income to spend on football and - perhaps most crucially - the number of independently wealthy individuals standing in line to bank roll a small football club has dwindled. Player's wages need to adjust, but this will take time and there may be some casualties along the way; it surely won't be too long until we see a league club go bust (Port Vale first to go?). Some clubs have handled things better than others - as referred to above - building stadiums and securing non-matchday income streams that enhance the sustainability of the club. Unfortunately Latics didn't fix the roof while the sun was shining - this became evident when TTA were looking to finance the redevelopment of BP in 2008/9 through the sale of land - just at the time the property bubble was bursting. I'm very supportive of what TTA/Corney have done and continue to do for my club, but just don't see what the exit strategy looks like at the moment. We need external investment if the redevelopment is ever going to happen. In the mean time I would rather Latics cut their cloth accordingly on the playing budget and were competitive at whatever level of football that implied. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GlossopLatic Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I think we really need to look at what is being done to bring investment into the club in reality we can't go anywhere without this investment we all realise this but what is actually being done? Are we talking to investors? have we approached anyone about taking over the club? Have we had any interest from anyone? Have we approached anyone about advise interms of selling the club? Have we approached anyone about brokering a deal or advising us on how to sell the club? I don't think it would be fair for us to try and lynch Simon Corney for their not being a Billionaire preparing to piss away a fortune on us. However we could ask him or Barry Owen or Neil Joy the questions about what is being done to bring in investement possibly in the form of emails, approach the trust even. It would be a starting point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancy lad Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 What can we do as "fans"??? Here is a suggestion, try and lift the doom and gloom instead of adding to it all the time with dramtic posts! Once a Latic, always a Latic......... deal with it!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GlossopLatic Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 What can we do as "fans"??? Here is a suggestion, try and lift the doom and gloom instead of adding to it all the time with dramtic posts! Once a Latic, always a Latic......... deal with it!!! Maybe so but at the same time perhaps we as fans should look abit further than this and see what can be done and come up with some positive suggestions. I've suggested above we could as fans start emailing the powers that be and finding out just what is being done to bring in investment into the club. I've suggested in another thread about trying to encourage local businesses into Playershare. Their maybe a number of local businesses particularly small and medium sized businesses who have neither the capital or inclination to fully take over Latics but do have an affinity with the club and may wish to help contribute to its success, who knows maybe one of them might have a contact who is interested in investing in a football club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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