Preview: Can Latics turn on the attacking style at Boundary Park? And can you win a battle for truth against conspiracy nuts?

Another game, another battle for upper-mid table pre-eminence.

Yes, there isn’t a lot at stake in terms of league standings for Latics, but there is for Crawley Town, who are flirting with disaster just two points above Harrogate Town and four points above Newport County in the relegation places.

Going down to the National League is a disaster. As Latics fans know, the National League is a bearpit and, whoever triumphs in this season’s title race and play-off final, there will still be seven or eight clubs capable of mounting a challenge next season. The two clubs relegated from League Two will struggle without some serious investment in their playing squads, and that doesn’t guarantee you even a play-off spot, as Latics can testify having made the grade only once during their three seasons in the dungeon below the basement. The future for the relegated clubs is bleak and, for that reason, Crawley have much more to play for tomorrow than Latics.

For their part, Latics can exploit Crawley’s problems in any number of ways, and hopefully they’re in the mood to have that type of game tomorrow after last week’s 0-3 bonanza away at Gillingham. Latics outmatch Crawley man for man all over the pitch and all the way down the bench. When the sides met just before Christmas, Manny Monthé had a rare off day, allowing Kabongo Tshimanga to get around him to score a late equaliser after Latics had come back from a goal down to lead 1-2. Tshimanga has moved on – he scored the winner against Latics playing for Barnet a few weeks ago. Last week, Monthé was immense, forming an unbeatable trio with Donervon Daniels and Mat Hudson in front of the Latics goal. The 0-3 scoreline does not tell you how busy the three of them were.

If Latics are even a tenth as up for it as they were last week, the Boundary Park faithful and the 50 or so Crawley fans are in for a cracker.

LET’S HAVE IT RIGHT

The tendency on His Majesty’s Internet to make everything into a conspiracy is brilliant for mischief makers. Those of us who like to find out and then accept the truth of a situation find ourselves crowded out by people who think aliens (and/or terrestrial wrongdoers) are somehow behind everything and up to no good.

I love football conspiracy theories as much as the next man, woman and child, but sometimes a line is crossed into real-world conspiracy theories, at which point I’m out. The theory that the succession of post-Ferguson Manchester United managers have been double agents is a belter…right up until someone fakes a photo of, say, David Moyes

breaking bread and having a laugh with Sheikh Mansour, owner of Manchester City. (That never happened if only because it was much more difficult back then to fake images.)

A few weeks ago, when the story broke that Bill Quinn, then chair of Oldham Rugby League Football Club, was persona non grata at Boundary Park, the question rightly arose about the £1 million grant given by Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council for a new playing surface at Boundary Park that could sustain both teams playing their home games there.

The grant was announced in March 2023 and the new pitch was laid that summer. I asked Oldham Council whether it was minded to claw back all or any of the grant after the rugby club essentially left Boundary Park. A council spokesperson said:

“Oldham Council is not involved in the ground-share arrangement at Boundary Park.

“Any council funding provided for Boundary Park was for specific improvement works, including the playing surface. These improvements have been delivered and are being used as intended.”

In other words, the conditions of the grant were fulfilled and Oldham Council has no further oversight. Would you expect the council to monitor the use of the pitch for all eternity? No, you wouldn’t.

I also asked the council to clarify the position of SportsTown, which has received a £5 million grant for the development of Little Wembley, the conversion of the upper floor of the Joe Royle Stand into an education facility and the building of new netball courts on the Boundary Park curtilage. Little Wembley is complete, and looks amazing. The upper floor of the JRS is a work in progress, and the netball courts are in the planning stage.

A council spokesperson said: “SportsTown is a separate regeneration programme that is progressing as planned and will bring real benefits to Oldham, with plans to create jobs, improve infrastructure and deliver wider economic benefits for the borough.

“The Council continues to monitor all funding projects through its usual monitoring processes.”

It’s worth reiterating that. Five million quid is a lot of money and taxpayers (national as well as local) deserve to know what’s happening with it. SportsTown is a company (the Rothwell family bought Brass Bank, the previous landowner, and renamed it on 6 June 2024). It will provide – is already providing – 16-to-19 sports-related education. The four sports it will specialise in are cricket, football, netball and rugby. I cannot tell you what qualifications are on offer because that information is not publicly available.

SportsTown does not depend on association with the town’s professional sports clubs. Sure it helps (which is why the ribbon was cut by Bill Quinn, council leader Arooj Shah, and Latics and SportsTown director Su Schofield), but it is not a deal-breaker if ORLFC is

not involved – or if OAFC is not involved for that matter. The football club and the rugby club are separate entities from one another and from SportsTown.

No one has any good reason to believe that anything is amiss with the SportsTown grant.

Having said that, pretty much everything I know about SportsTown comes from corroborated off-the-record sources familiar with the situation, together with a rudimentary reading of submitted accounts (always two years behind the now) and previous public statements. The absence of publicly available contact details makes it difficult for journalists (and by extension national and local taxpayers) to engage directly with SportsTown. SportsTown has no press officer, no website, no email address and no phone number. I contacted the football club for comment and the usual thing happened: absolutely nothing.

You can be secretive all you like about whether Jones is injured or whether we’re playing 4-4-2 or 5-3-2 on Saturday. But not commenting on the question of the proper use of five million quid of taxpayers’ money is less than optimal…in my humble opinion. A lot of people – myself included – are really hoping this project comes off. Potential investors need to know. The parents and kids who’ll benefit from a SportsTown education need to know.

The radio silence looks arrogant – some would say it looks that way because it is that way. We don’t need a running commentary, but we do deserve some kind of progress reporting and media responsiveness when bumps in the road such as the Bill Quinn affair arise. Here endeth the lesson.