Latics diary: This side can go the distance

It’s been apparent for a few weeks now that this Athletic side have the ability to mount a serious challenge for promotion this season.

The realisation has come in at least three forms: Latics’ impressive performances against the higher-ranked Walsall and Chesterfield; the gradual accrual of comprehensible selections, performances and points; and the opportunity provided by the inability of any one team to stamp their authority on the division.

As Micky Mellon was sure to point out in his post-Cheltenham interview on Saturday, his side came from behind to win for the first time this season. It’s an encouraging marker of his side’s incremental gains: Latics have been hard to beat all season and have turned losing positions into draws, so to secure a win from behind is a significant further step in the right direction. On Saturday, they equalised only 20 minutes after going behind when most home fans were bedding in for a long struggle, perhaps resulting in an equaliser. How many times have we seen Latics puff themselves out chasing a point in the past few seasons?

This time they were clinical. They took their chance and showed terrific defensive qualities when Cheltenham threw everything at them late on in search of an equaliser, not least in the shape of Mat Hudson between the sticks.

Having said that, you don’t have to scan the horizon for too long to see mid-table hazards. First, Latics have a certain amount of squad depth, but we can expect more and longer-term injuries as the season goes on. That’s just the way of it. Matchday niggles turn into a game or two on the sidelines, fortnights turn into months.

The question isn’t whether we have understudies, but whether they can step up when the hour cometh. Mellon’s managerial genius is in no small part due to his insistence on the highest standards at all times from everyone, so we can assume that the likes of Oli Hammond, Jack Stevens and Will Sutton – players who aren’t always included in the matchday squad, let alone the first XI – will be fit as fleas and fully briefed when they get their chance.

There are other pitfalls. In the previous two seasons, Mellon’s Latics have fallen off a cliff in the second half of the league season proper. Why? The problem, as always in football, isn’t Latics, but those pesky other so-called clubs, with their irritating, self-centred objectives.

The longer the season goes on, the sharper everyone’s focus becomes. Every side is more motivated in February than they were in January, more resolute in March than they were in February, and so on. The curve steepens until you can’t move one place either way in the league. The three promotion places in this league and four play-off places means that

hardly any clubs will have their fate decided before the beginning of April. Most will have something to play for until there’s only three or four games left.

That’s what Latics are up against. At the same time, no side will bank on points gained from Latics, home or away.

BUNKABIN BLUES

Promotion prospects are one thing, but who cares when the off-field ambience in and around Boundary Park remains at an all-time high in my lifetime, which is 51 years today? This is in large part down to club chairman Frank Rothwell. Yes, Luke and Su – Frank and Judith’s son and daughter – are the beneficial owners of Oldham Athletic the company, but Frank remains the spiritual figurehead of the club.

The Rothwells were down in Windsor Castle last week to see Frank collect his OBE for services to charity. On his way back from Windsor, Frank popped into Chequers, the Prime Minister’s official country residence, where they were looked after by Graham Howarth, the Prime Minister’s chef and major Latics fan, who gave them an extended guided tour.

That’s a Big Day in anyone’s book, but Frank was more interested in the bigger picture. He wasn’t interested in promoting himself or waxing lyrical with His Highness the Prince of Wales about rowing across the Atlantic, raising £1 million for Alzheimer’s research, or any of his other great deeds, such as rescuing a football club and achieving in 2025 what Oldham Athletic had not achieved since 1991.

No. Frank used the opportunity to invite the future King of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Head of the Commonwealth, Head of the Church of England etc., to visit Oldham to celebrate the birth and birthplace of Louise Brown, the first IVF baby, who’ll be 50 years old in July 2028, bang in the middle of royal garden party season.

I’m told by those who know about these things that making a request of a royal personage is strictly against protocol in investiture ceremonies. Wearing a flat cap while allowing the Prince of Wales to pin a medal on one’s chest is also strictly verboten: “Gentlemen will NOT wear hats,” sayeth the invite. Just words aren’t they, when printed on a royal invitation?

Frank was back at Boundary Park on Saturday showing people round a Bunkabin, which is a portacabin converted into a living space for on-site workers. The man is everywhere.

I can’t remember hearing anyone talking Oldham up like Frank does: not a political figure or TV personality or football player or anyone. Oldham exiles such as myself have mixed opinions about our home town. We are tempted now and then to criticise the place to justify our leaving of it, especially in the company of other exiles. At the same time, pride

demands that we become aggressively defensive if anyone not from Oldham says one single negative word about it, or even just a single non-positive word.

Latics the team is one thing. Giving Latics the club a long-term civic mission, as Frank Rothwell has, is one the best things – perhaps the best thing – anyone has ever done for the club.