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| Pre-match at Whittles |
Having not had an argument in a while, I had a few on Satdy. I apologise to Mr Reed, who not only did I put in potential danger at the match, but I seriously upset later in the pub. Yes, it’s true, the agent provocateur that I am, I thought shouting ‘Johnson Out’ after we scored would get the point across perfectly; one swallow doth not a summer make. Obviously, others can’t see beyond us scoring and I appreciate that. Dissent should not be tolerated and folk should put up and shut up. The vocal minority made their point, seamlessly going from ‘how s*** must you be, it’s only a draw’ to ’Lee Johnson’s red and white army’. Fickle is not the word.
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| Welcome to ... |
I’d not initially stood with Andy and Phil further back, I was enjoying a behind the goal view from a seat halfway up the stand. Course, I went for a p*** and came back in time to see Hourihane score a screamer so I thought I’d pay them a visit. After a row with a couple of fans (Andy literally in the middle of it) and exhortations ‘to get behind the team’, nobody did. We do chuntering, not chanting. The atmosphere was somewhat flat for the most part, possibly cos we’d lost the best of 2000 fans from last season’s following. Wonder why.
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| back of the Main Stand |
2nd half, I went back to my original seat. We were dominating and I couldn’t see Oldham scoring. I spoke to a few faces…the general jist was we might as well stick with Little Lee, we’ve sacked too many managers etc etc. I watched the 2nd half passively, till another trip to the loo brought a 10 minute debate with Kempy and one of his mates (the one with the mod haircut who regularly travels). The latter went from disagreeing with me to agreeing in the same sentence. I left, confused…and upon entering the stand again half jokingly asked a steward if we were still winning. ‘No, it’s one-all’. I didn’t know if he was joking, cos I hadn’t heard any noise from inside the toilets…but I was past caring, really. (It was, indeed, one-all.)
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| 'Pies This Way' |
I moved seats again to take a few pics before sitting down, feet on seats in front….to see their keeper make a proper howler to give us the win in the last minute. Jackson was one-on-one and his effort was so poor the keeper couldn’t fail to save it, but somehow lolly-popped it up for some on loan defender to score. As the players celebrated in front of me, I applauded politely (eventually). You might even see me on the telly, I never moved. Apparently Little Lee was out on the pitch fist pumping at the end, but I’d gone to pick up the flag. F*** him.
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| It's bl**dy cold in Oldham |
Yes, I’m at a low ebb in my support. Nevermind the 8 league defeats in a row, or being knocked out of the FA Cup by part timers, we had 5 loanees out there today (I’m sure there’d be more if we were allowed). How’s that OUR team? Why are we continually bringing in other teams’ players to improve, rather than what we have? He says our team’s too young, so drops George Smith, a player who I personally think has done very well this season. Still, I s’pose I should be grateful that Little Lee recognises the poor form of Nyatanga, and the general awfulness of Roberts, so drops them an’ all.
What is the problem at Oakwell? Poor management? Poor strategy from above? ‘But we won!’ Yes. Yes, we did. And have you seen Oldham’s home record this season? Good job they also had a cup game in midweek, an excuse we won’t have failed to latch onto had it been the other way around.
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| Oldham's executive box. Singular. |
*** Hourihane. Scored a cracker.
** Davies. Saved a cracker (a one-on-one in 1st half)
* No idea. Lost interest. Go on then, I thought Hamill played ok again.
Londontykes' Top 3:
1. Long of Burnley
2. Hourihane
3. Davies
Despatches:While I’m on about loan players, one thing that will not help the communication between defenders and keeper is the continual turnover of players. One of the new blokes headed it past Davies as he came out to collect, only he wasn’t as good as Nyatanga at home to Swindon, and it went wide. (It was Aidey White.)
Drink du jour: Although it looked like Oldham was closed, we found a tremendous ‘rock n roll pub’ (Whittles?) which was so rock n roll it could only serve me Leffe in half pints. But I’d recommend that place again. Later supplemented by Vodka and orange.
Crowd: 4,300 (564 Reds, according to Phil, though it seemed a lot less), as most folk spread themselves out.
Did I mention it was also f***ing freezing? That can’t have helped the mood.
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| Back of the 'exec' |
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| steps to / from the away end |
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| Teams come out |
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| Londontykes' flag |
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| 'This is how it feels to be lonely' (Were the Inspirals Latics fans?) |
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| Terrible design. Do they understand 'proportion'? |
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| It's not 65.4 miles from Peckham! |
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| It must be LITERALLY freezing now. |
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