Post-Match Thread and Ratings Oldham FC 3-2 Southend Utd

[Wingnut]

Back in Oregon. It's been a very draining few days, both physically and emotionally. I remain bitterly disappointed that we are still in the godforsaken National League. No excuses next year - we must get promotion.

As Paul Clarke said yesterday Other teams will have high expectations as well so there will be no entitlement
Lot of the squad are on long term contracts so there will not much change next season
We could be in the national for years unless we get a substantial backing which I can’t see happening
Will no doubt get the usual oh we missed out on players because we was in the beginning of June

 

[SuperRonnieP]

Ah that’s made me smile. My son was devastated, in tears. I think the first thing he said was “great, Borehamwood, Brackley”.. but he insisted on staying and applauding the team. I told him it’d make next season sweeter when we go up.

Cheers for that, forgotten Boring Wood had come back up - feel even worse about yesterday now!

 

[Shrimper]

It was not only the lack of ball boys which was most surprising and annoying but also the lack of extra balls. For players to be jumping the barriers to recover the ball was ridiculous in a showpiece final. Was this farcical arrangement repeated in the other playoff finals I wonder?

I seem to recall Chelsea Women and Arsenal Women had a public spat over this sort of thing. They have a choice of two systems. 1 ball or balls around the pitch. Not sure if the same here

 

[myblueheaven]

Oldham fan here and not to gloat.

Although I am absolutely on cloud 9 and still mentally drained from yesterday, i can honestly say I have never felt this way about the opposition club. I have watched us since 1976 but yesterday I was somehow gutted for your club and fans.
You were magnificent before, during and after the game, as was your manager.

I was walking away from Wembley and encountered a father and his young son, approx 8 yrs old, they were Southend fans, I felt really sad for this young lad and his dad who thanked us for our kind words, football can be so cruel.

I wont comment too much on the game, we were better at times but so were you, we looked dead after your extra time goal and our fans were saying its not happening, then it did happen in cruellest of ways.

I genuinely hope you kick on from this and it has a positive effect on your club, because it should.

All the very best for next season, I think many Oldham fans will have a soft spot for your club after all this.

And to that young lad and dad, chin up this will soon be forgotten and hopefully you will be promoted next season.

 

[lreed567]

Oldham fan here and not to gloat.

Although I am absolutely on cloud 9 and still mentally drained from yesterday, i can honestly say I have never felt this way about the opposition club. I have watched us since 1976 but yesterday I was somehow gutted for your club and fans.
You were magnificent before, during and after the game, as was your manager.

I was walking away from Wembley and encountered a father and his young son, approx 8 yrs old, they were Southend fans, I felt really sad for this young lad and his dad who thanked us for our kind words, football can be so cruel.

I wont comment too much on the game, we were better at times but so were you, we looked dead after your extra time goal and our fans were saying its not happening, then it did happen in cruellest of ways.

I genuinely hope you kick on from this and it has a positive effect on your club, because it should.

All the very best for next season, I think many Oldham fans will have a soft spot for your club after all this.

And to that young lad and dad, chin up this will soon be forgotten and hopefully you will be promoted next season.

I have no ill feeling at all towards Oldham and their fan, I encountered a few at the station, all shook hands and wished each other luck for next season (how football should be) a big club who also doesn't deserve to be in the national league, at the end of the day there has to be a winner and a loser and unfortunately it was us yesterday. Good luck again to Oldham next season.

 

[Leeboy]

Nice of Look East to give us about 4 minutes of coverage just now, making a total of maybe 10 minutes in 4 years since we dropped into non-League.

Lazy, embarrassing and sycophantic journalism

Stick to Norwich, Ipswich and Peterborough you c ** ts

 

[NZamba Legend]

Have been watching football for a long time now but I have to say that was one of the most engrossing matches I have ever watched. Like Italy Brazil in the 82 World Cup, okay maybe not quite that good (!) but at no point did I think we were definitely going to win or that Oldham would. You couldn’t take your eyes off it. Two totally committed teams- not brilliant teams, but totally committed. Had some great write ups in the press too.

 

[Hooly]

Oldham fan here and not to gloat.

Although I am absolutely on cloud 9 and still mentally drained from yesterday, i can honestly say I have never felt this way about the opposition club. I have watched us since 1976 but yesterday I was somehow gutted for your club and fans.
You were magnificent before, during and after the game, as was your manager.

I was walking away from Wembley and encountered a father and his young son, approx 8 yrs old, they were Southend fans, I felt really sad for this young lad and his dad who thanked us for our kind words, football can be so cruel.

I wont comment too much on the game, we were better at times but so were you, we looked dead after your extra time goal and our fans were saying its not happening, then it did happen in cruellest of ways.

I genuinely hope you kick on from this and it has a positive effect on your club, because it should.

All the very best for next season, I think many Oldham fans will have a soft spot for your club after all this.

And to that young lad and dad, chin up this will soon be forgotten and hopefully you will be promoted next season.

Can't remember a game of this type that I've been to with such a level of respect between the fans. We encountered loads on the way into the ground & had lots of good banter.

I actually was one of the only SUFC fans who stayed to see the presentation so when I came out I was walking with hundreds of Oldham fans all of who were very complimentary about our team & supporters. There was no "2-1 & you f***ed it up" vibes & it was a pleasure to see happy fans who could relate to the losers so well. Your fans were a credit to your club as well.

I'm sure you'll do well enough in L2.

 

[Goodwin]

Does anyone know how Bournes Green did in their Wembly final yesterday ?

 

[Exiled Shrimper]

Does anyone know how Bournes Green did in their Wembly final yesterday ?

They lost to a school representing AFC Fylde. In the other schools final, Altrincham defeated St Albans City, so it ended up being a hat-trick of north-west wins over the south.

 

[myblueheaven]

Can't remember a game of this type that I've been to with such a level of respect between the fans. We encountered loads on the way into the ground & had lots of good banter.

I actually was one of the only SUFC fans who stayed to see the presentation so when I came out I was walking with hundreds of Oldham fans all of who were very complimentary about our team & supporters. There was no "2-1 & you f***ed it up" vibes & it was a pleasure to see happy fans who could relate to the losers so well.

I'm sure you'll do well enough in L2.

A nice level of respect towards each other from both sets of fans for sure.

Nice to see

 

[ace]

No but they kept going forward and in effect made their own luck, just 2 mins after their 2nd. We were tiring badly at that point and they knew it. They then saw out the game very professionally.

Sorry dont agree. They scored their second against the run of play. At that point there only looked like one winner. We had just missed a really good chance. We probably should have been playing the game out, but seemed to be going for the third. Their second came from a hopeful punt upfield. Having despatched that it was obvious it knocked the wind out of our sails, and spurred them on. They only needed to see out 8 minutes having taken the lead, not 29.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

I think it's a difficult balancing act for the COSU members, though. I have the impression, without wishing to be disparaging of them, that they are not too high up in the rich list of global wealth, even collectively, and certainly not in the same league as the likes of Ryan Reynolds or Sir Jim Ratcliffe. The financial mess bequeathed to them by Ron Martin when they purchased the club continues to be a draw on their financial resources. To maintain regular cash flow into the club they need to get as many bums on seats at Roots Hall as possible. Providing the owners of those bums with a team that wins matches and gets promoted up the leagues is, as you rightly imply, essential but so is providing them with an attractive and safe environment in which to watch that team. At this stage the financial investment in both aspects is speculative. The decades of neglect of the Roots Hall ground (that COSU doesn't even own yet!) requires cash to keep it compliant with licensing regulations as a bare minimum. Balancing a tight budget between how much to invest in the team and how much to invest in the real estate is problematic. I think we have both been supporters long enough to remember the confrontation between David Webb (with his senior players) and Vic Jobson over investment in the team to get promotion to the old Football League Division 1 (now Premier League) in the 1990s. Vic refused and we subsequently dropped down the divisions again. Ron Martin spent money that he didn't have and almost destroyed the club. COSU somehow have to find a middle way between those two unsuccessful approaches.

And I have the impression that the COSU are more interested in "bums on seats" (of which we currently have a great many) than they are in a return to the EFL asap,which will only be possible if we invest in the team as Barnet & Oldham did,Either way expect things to get sticky next season if we don't look in the hunt for automatic promotion Or a play off place (at the least).Othewise you make some good points,IMO.

 

[Kenny]

I managed to watch the game at the biggest sports bar in Bangkok. I'd even pre-arranged everything with them a few days prior—but of course, their (dodgy) DAZN feed wasn't working at kick-off. One minute in, I switched to Plan B: paid a tenner on my phone for the official DAZN stream... and naturally, just as we went 1-0 up, their projector kicked into life. Classic.

We'd already ridden our luck just to reach the playoffs, and that continued in the first half: an own goal to take the lead, a let-off when Taylor’s foul didn’t result in a penalty, and Oldham missing a huge chance just before halftime. Over the 90 minutes, I thought Oldham were the better side—no surprise given how they’d dismantled Halifax and York 4-0 and 3-0 en route to Wembley.

Then came extra time. Oldham suddenly looked a bit leggy, we took the lead again, and for a moment, I allowed myself to dream—dream of escaping this ****house league. I even looked up how iFollow works over here. But of course, Walker missed his big chance (no shock really—I wouldn’t have backed any of our strikers this season to finish that). And then, in the blink of an eye, Oldham go up the other end and it’s 3-2. Two minutes. Gone.

The 15-minute midnight bus ride back to my corner of Bangkok was grim—but probably still less painful than the coach rides back to Essex.

Now that I’ve had 24 hours to sit with it, I can say we did brilliantly just to get this far. After that 0–1 home defeat to Solihull, making the playoffs didn’t even look possible. Honestly, from what I saw yesterday, this didn’t look like a team ready for League Two. Going up on 68 points (when Barnet had 102) would’ve been one of the great footballing heists.

Still, there were positives. Lewis looks like a great signing. Keenan has made a real case to be a regular these past few weeks. Morts returning will help, but we clearly need more firepower up front next season.

COSU have big decisions to make this summer regardless. If we had gone up, the investment needed to be Football League-ready would've been even bigger. I imagine John Still had two whiteboards on the go—one for promotion, one for staying down.

It always goes one of two ways after a playoff defeat: either you regroup, recruit smart, and come back to smash the league—or the hangover hits hard, and people are calling for Kev’s head by mid-September.

To be just 10 minutes away from sneaking back into the EFL, only to lose it, was cruel. But the progress off the pitch in the last 10–11 months has been massive. Seeing 28,000 at Wembley? That shows COSU they’ve backed the right horse. The potential is clearly there—if we can keep the momentum going.

Most of what I’ve seen on socials has been full of love for the club and the fans. That Vanarama infographic for next seasons team graphic was rough to see though—us alongside Carlisle and Truro (which will be midweek, obviously). But even with that, the bitterness and toxicity of the last 15 Rat years? It feels like it’s finally gone.

 

[Dawg]

Coker has a place in the squad but I felt we lacked a battling midfielder on the bench to help see that out. Hurts, but we will be stronger next year

 

[MisterStubbs]

No. They have played three high intensity important cup ties (effectively) at the end of a hard season. They were drained by the end of the first half of extra time. They threw nothing away, they just didn't have quite enough energy to get over the line.

Whilst I agree that by the end of the extra time periods, the lads looked dead on their feet after such a long season.. but, I’m not sure quality has anything to do with the fact we were beaten by a long, hopeful punt up field and then by a fluke of a cross that’s found the bottom corner. Both goals were avoidable.

 

[Derbyshire Blue]

I am sorry to hear about the job. Fingers crossed something in the pipe line
Onwards and upwards (as they say)

Yes thanks, all good, great opportunity for me. I just wish it was an opportunity to move back 'home', but I might be pushing it there!

 

[Scapegoat]

Spoke to a number of Oldham fans after the game, all really friendly and happy to talk over the game and their club in general. Their perspective was interesting: despite the results against Halifax and York the fans unsure about MM's tactics during the season (too negative) ; Fondop good but could be better, despite the goals; really rated Pett, (who I thought had an excellent game); relieved to have won, thought they had blown it in ET; already worried about having too many players out of contract or going back after loan spells.

This has been a season of mixed emotions and views.

Having only experienced one promotion in 50 years, we have very little experience of it, and the one we did have was pretty much as perfect as it gets.

It came the season after we gloriously failed in two cup runs (a league cup final, am FA Cup semifinal reply), we were never out of the top 2 all season, and won the title with the last kick of the season.

This season has shown me promotion can be ugly, it can have bad runs and frankly p*ss poor performances, and it is about getting over the line. Yesterday was a game on a knife edge….we take our chances first half and we might run out comfortable winners….you take the chance in ET to make it 3-1 and we are toast.

A goal of real class by Norwood, which frankly no other player in our team could score, changed everything.

We have 8 players under contract beyond today…and about 4 weeks before pre-season. Next year will be exciting and I’d take midtable mediocrity right now.

 

[Mad Cyril]

Nice of Look East to give us about 4 minutes of coverage just now, making a total of maybe 10 minutes in 4 years since we dropped into non-League.

Lazy, embarrassing and sycophantic journalism

Stick to Norwich, Ipswich and Peterborough you c ** ts

That’s your opinion.

I was really pleased Look East only gave me 30 seconds when I was in the news.

 

[Scapegoat]

Can't remember a game of this type that I've been to with such a level of respect between the fans. We encountered loads on the way into the ground & had lots of good banter.

I actually was one of the only SUFC fans who stayed to see the presentation so when I came out I was walking with hundreds of Oldham fans all of who were very complimentary about our team & supporters. There was no "2-1 & you f***ed it up" vibes & it was a pleasure to see happy fans who could relate to the losers so well. Your fans were a credit to your club as well.

I'm sure you'll do well enough in L2.

This.

Every Shrimper we met was a credit to your club - pre and post game.

I keep reading and posting here because it feels like a kindred group of supporters who have gone through dark times, feel that the world is starting to have hope, and it’s a good place to discuss the game and football in general.


Re the atmosphere. Our process was 4 tickets per season ticket, but if tickets were linked ie mine, my dad, my son, you could select 12 on one web visit. We co-ordinated by sharing our tickets with one person - and they logged on with 2 or 3 linked groups of tickets and bought all together. We managed to get our normal group and family extras (wives, friends etc) together and we numbered 20+.

This - and the club said that all the noisy lot should aim for a certain group of blocks, and they did.