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I have a very simple message for you this week.
Calm. Your. Tits.
That’s it, that’s the blog.
OK, I’ll elaborate a little bit.
I know that recent experience has left us all with the football equivalent of PTSD, but our start to the season has been more ‘meh’ than ‘OH GOD WILL THIS SPIRAL OF TERMINAL DECLINE NEVER END’. Our recent form is WLLWD. That is bang average. “Not good enough in this shit division!”, I hear you cry. Yeah League Two was pretty shit as well, and we made light work of getting relegated from it. After over two decades of stagnation, we have been in free fall for the last few years. Bang average form in the National League is a parachute opening. I said on the D5 website before the takeover that I’d consider staying up a success this season. We can breathe a sigh of relief and set our sights a bit higher now, but not being top of the league at the start of September does not constitute failure. I’m not pissed off that we’re not splashing the cash on players, because I’m old enough to remember Queensy Menig living in the Midland Hotel and whatever the hell we were paying Johny Placide. I’m also old enough to remember Chris Moore paying unsustainable wages, which we were saddled with when he decided to bin us off as his pet project. It’s OK that we’ve signed a load of defenders. It’s fine that we haven’t signed a striker, because Hallam Hope is on fire and is going to score 20 goals this season. I am fully confident that this prediction will absolutely not come back to bite me on the arse. Why yes this is a lovely Pinot Gris, thank you for asking.
(image © @1895_TF)
As for the #oafc timeline on Twitter…. On the one hand, it’s lovely that we’re all back to boiling our piss about on-field matters. Nature is healing. On the other hand, watch the news, look out of your window and ask yourself whether someone disagreeing with you about whether or not Fondop is lazy is the thing you should be rage-tweeting about at 2am.
(Speaking of watching the news and getting some perspective: whichever gobshite is revealed as the new prime minister on Monday, things are going to get a lot worse for a lot of people over the coming months, so please consider making a donation to Oldham Foodbank at the collection points at the ground today. You can donate outside the Family Stand and Jimmy Frizzell stand turnstiles or at the club shop. Any food or toiletries will be gratefully accepted, but they especially need tinned food, pasta, rice and long life milk.)
There is also no need to get upset at Wee Guys On Twitter sniping and bitching at us. I won’t give the podcast that posted that video of those two smug tossers smirking about us being ‘arrogant’ the attention they’re desperate for by naming them, but it was VERY funny when the little broflakes took it down because everyone (and not just Oldham fans) told them they were talking bollocks. Take it as a compliment. They’re namechecking us because, at this level, we really are massive. No-one’s bothering to start a flame war with Dorking, are they? Do the kids still call it a flame war? No? Not since about 2004?
So, in conclusion, it’s great that we’re back to arguing about the football, but also, calm the fuck down. It’s quite a reality check getting beaten by The Likes Of Wealdstone, but look at where Wealdstone are in the league. We are where we are, and we’re slamming the brakes on years of decline, while other teams in this division have been on an upward trajectory. It’s going to take time to turn this around, but now we’ve got people running the club who might have a vague clue how to go about that. I’m aboard neither HMS Piss The League nor the Shez Out train, but I’m very much on board the Be More Frank bus. Let’s try to keep the feel-good factor going for a little bit longer, eh? Don’t make me ask Sam Corry to make #CalmYourTits t-shirts. If I have to, I’ll fucking do it.
Written by Arlene Finnigan