
Ok so we hear about them all the time, but yesterday due to us not having a game to play I decided to go into Manchester for a few drinks. When I got off the train at Piccadilly just after 4pm the station was awash with people of all different accents and identities all with one thing in common - the red of Man Utd. Now I'm not one of these Oldham fans who is that bitter about Utd, I'm not one of these who would go out and buy a Real Madrid shirt if they were playing them in the Champions League, I'm not one of those people who make a mockery of the Munich Air Disaster nor am I one of those people who refer to them as "the Scum".
But yesterday brought to my attention something I do despise about them, when I was walking past a map of the city centre I saw these two lads with Midlands accents looking at a map of Manchester wondering where the hell to go. Now I'm aware that we live in a free country and we're allowed to do what we want, but it really pisses me off how people would rather watch a team 200 miles away than watch their own club, in England we are blessed with many professional teams but I think the way in which it is deemed acceptable to watch a team on TV these days and the fact that everyone seems to be investing in the same place is really killing the English game.
What I saw yesterday were people who to me will never know the true meaning glory, supporting Latics is hard, we've won nothing in 20 years and it doesn't look like any glory is going to come anytime soon, but I'll tell you one thing if that day comes when Latics win something, it will mean a hell of a lot more to me than it would to any plastic fan when their team wins the Champions League, Premiership, FA Cup etc. This brings me onto another topic - why do people support football clubs? To me I was always told to follow either your local team, your Dads team or the first team playing at the first game you went to to me those reasons for supporting a team are due to the fact that the club becomes a part of the person. How can these people I saw yesterday going back to Cardiff, Nottingham, London etc feel the same sort of passion to support their club than I do to support mine? If only people could see things this way then maybe the English game would be a much more even playing field making the game more competitive and enabling the smaller clubs more investment to bring players through rather than a large proportion of the population pumping their cash into the same clubs ensuring the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer, unfortunately this article will probably go unnoticed and we will see in the next 6 months at least one Football club going out of Business.
This is what all true fans are saying. I will always support OLDHAM ATHLETIC, the club which I overlooked when my mother gave birth to me, and that was a day when we won. I know that because my father who is now in his 80's was at the match, and he still loves the club. I'd rather watch Latics any day than those fancy fairies in the Premiership. The lower league clubs are fighting for their lives, and that's where the real football's played. Latics forever, any other club never.
ReplyDeleteOldham forever.
ReplyDeleteForever Oldham.
KTF.