Promotion Contenders & Pterodactyls

Well. What a game. The football played by Latics at times was sensational. A sort of Lancastrian Tika-Taka if you will, with Furman & Stephens in the Busquet & Xavi roles and Tounkara as a French David Villa (If David Villa had been raised by wildebeest and fed on nothing but raw pterodactyls flesh since the age of 3).

One of Oumar Tounkara's 5-a-day?

Admittedly I didn't have the greatest view of the game from my seat in a pub in Didsbury, but it seems a safe assumption that  Oldham completely outplayed Charlton and the only reason we didn't get the three points was a combination of bad refereeing, bad luck and cheating Cockneys. In fact the way we got the result is immaterial, as that point keeps Athletic in 2nd place above the likes of Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton & Huddersfield. The promotion dream for once looks slightly less ridiculous than Blackpool in the top flight, a team starting the season with two 6-0 wins or an average defensive midfielder getting paid a quarter of a million pounds a week.

The real success so far in Latics' season has got to be Dean Furman, having failed to score in his first 43 games for the club he scored a stunning opener last week against Notts County and by all accounts scored an equally good equalizer today. Paul Dickov seems to have turned a man that last season couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo into the lower league Frank Lampard, though admittedly without the lovely Christine Bleakley on his arm.

It's Yeovil Town back at Boundary Park next week and with four of the next five games at home against teams that, with Latics playing as they are, are certainly beatable we could be seeing Athletic remaining in the top two well into September.

Well I suppose it beats watching Dave Penney bore the opposition (and fans) to death.

The Warm Up

So, a new blog. As i stare at my computer screen I realise that maybe I didn't have as much to say as i thought. I realise that maybe the people of the internet don't want to know about how much I get a kick out of Arsene Wenger looking like Professor Yaffle, or how Shola Ameobi's geordie accent never fails to make me laugh, or how the speed at which chants are, well, chanted these days infuriates me. However I shall carry on regardless, starting not with one of the aforementioned subjects, but my initial thoughts on the embryonic league season.

This season started, as those of us who aren't wrapped up in the self important world of chequebooks & egos that is the Premier League well know, on the 7th August. In the preceding weeks & months I had built up a belief that this season my beloved Oldham Athletic were going to struggle to stay in the Gas & Electric League One with very little money and an untried, unloved new manager in Paul Dickov. However it was at 3:27pm on the 7th August that this carefully thought out pessimism vanished as Dale Stephens curled in a cheeky free kick to give the Mighty Blues a 1-0 lead against a Tranmere side with less of a cutting edge than a rubber spoon and my expectations immediately turned to promotion, the League One title and a new 5-year-plan for Champions League football at Boundary Park. Despite ultimately winning the game 2-1, and last Saturdays 3-0 home win against Ferencvaros legend Craig Short's Notts County taking us to the top of the league my expectations have receded as i recall the wise words of my Uncle. 'Girls & Latics: They'll always break your heart'. The next 9 months will tell which of those two will get me next...

Elswehere in the first two weeks of the season, an enjoyable Sunday afternoon was had by myself in a local Irish bar watching the Community Shield game between Chelsea & Man United, the highlight of which was the All-Ireland Hurling semi-finals on the other TV. The following Wednesday England kicked off the season with a promising (when you consider the horrific events of June) 2-1 win over Hungary in which we saw what should be the first of many England caps for Jack 'the future of English football' Wilshere. Fast forward 6 days and Tottenham resisted the temptation to field a youth team against Young Boys of Bern, a wise decision as the seniors did a passable impression of a school team in the first half hour, before recovering just enough to make next week's return leg a mouth watering prospect.

So, thats the first couple of weeks of the season as I see it. Hopefully you'll find your way back to this page for my next effort next week, when I shall pass comment on Charlton's indulgent extinguishing of Oldham's promotion bonfire, James '£16million better than Stephen Ireland' Milner's City debut & the latest news from Joey Barton's moustache.

See you there.