Latics diary: @Micky_Mellon

If you blinked, you missed it, but Micky Mellon actually revealed something in his post-match interview with Alan Jones, Latics’ head of media, after the game away to Crawley. He revealed, probably by accident, that he uses Twitter (or X if you like proto-fascist branding).

It’s a truism of the club’s official media that the overriding aim is to reveal as little as possible about anyone or anything associated with the club. The interviews with Mellon are normally especially repressed, consisting of curt answers to closed questions – that is, questions to which the short answer is yes or no.

“Micky, do you think we played better in the second half?”

“Yes, Alan…”

“Micky, was that the kind of reaction you were looking for after last week?”

“No, Alan. I wanted us to lose again.”

Stilted, denuded dialogue. Ersatz conversation.

That didn’t happen on Saturday. For once, Jones’ questions were open and, after a much-improved second-half performance, and two excellent goals from Michael Mellon and Jack Stevens, so was Micky Mellon, who inadvertently and very briefly escaped the club’s stranglehold on its minor secrets – the kinds of things that fans love to know for no special reason.

For those who didn’t follow Saturday’s game, Crawley were awarded a penalty deep into injury time at the end of the game with the score at 2-2. After consultation with the linesman, the referee correctly reversed his decision. Mellon was relieved of his fury, but nevertheless laid into the fourth official for not getting involved.

Mellon said that, before the game, the referee had told him that “the fourth official will help me make decisions.” Mellon said in his interview that, when the moment came in injury time when the referee needed help, “the fourth official went missing. He did the old Homer Simpson into-the-hedge trick…a masterclass at disappearing into the hedge.”

Anyone who’s seen the meme saw it in the same place: Twitter. It’s one of the most-used memes on the platform, and especially the areas of it that trade in association football wit and wisdom. It’s barely used anywhere except Twitter. Ergo Mellon uses Twitter. Follow the logic to tame wild speculation.

I wonder what he makes of it. Does he take it to heart when Gazapalooza says “I don’t think anyone expects to be in the play offs at this point. It’s the manner of the performance and appeared lack of ambition imo what’s frustrating people”? Is he as

indignant as I am when @492qbxgbd5 suggests that the club should spend “the money on Dean Brennan”?

Is he more impressed by the self-aware Tom Mc who, at 4.35pm on Saturday when Latics 1-2 in front, tweeted: “I’ve always said Mellon was the man to take us to the top ever since about 15 minutes ago” when the side was 1-0 down?

Alas, Mellon is not visible on Twitter to the likes of you and I. My guess is he’s following a few prominent Latics-related accounts and rarely if ever tweets himself. It’s possible he never retweets or likes things. But he’s 100% there, a secret scroller through the thoughts occurring to fans of Oldham Athletic, and their intense and sometimes short-lived feelings.

It's good that he’s aware of the hashtag, and good that he doesn’t outwardly care about it. It is considerably more volatile (according to my analytics) than the Twitter community of almost any other football club. Mellon gets to see a more varied bag of opinions than he hears from the touchline. It must be weird though, being at the centre of an unrelenting psychodrama.