Oldham’s draw against York on Easter Monday (and Rochdale’s failure to beat Fylde at home) means that Barnet, York and FGR will be the top 3 in the National League this season.  Oldham are almost certain to go into a ‘quarter final’ play-off game.

So, FGR may well see Oldham again in the play-offs.

The journey from Oldham (to the north-east of Manchester) is about 160 miles.  This is a road journey of around 3 hours 20 minutes for travelling supporters.

The return game in Oldham was last September.  A 9th minute goal from leading scorer Mike Fondop-Talom settled the game in favour of Oldham.  Steve Cotterill felt FGR dominated and were unlucky not to come away with any points.

Oldham are in 4th place in the table.  They are 9 points behind Rovers with 2 games to go.  Only 4 points separate Oldham, Gateshead, Rochdale & Halifax in the 4th to 7th play-off places.  And some of these teams will have an eye over their shoulders at Altrincham & Southend – either of these teams could yet sneak up into the play-off spots.

Oldham have been contenders at the top of the division all season.  However, they will be worried about their late season dip in form.  Their last 15 games have resulted in only 3 wins and a total of 16 points gained.  After a run of 3 straight defeats they will have been cheered by their last outings – a 2-1 home win against Hartlepool and a 1-1 away draw at York.

Oldham are equally effective both home and away.  They have accrued almost as many points on the road as they have at home this season, so the journey to Nailsworth looks unlikely to phase them.

Oldham’s recent finishes in the National League were 12th  in the 2022/23 and 10th last season.  Last season should have seen them in the play-offs.  However, a spectacular late season fade from the Latics meant they won only 1 of their final 14 games and therefore missed out.

Manny Monthe and James Norwood will both be players that FGR fans will recognise (see Rovers Connections below).  Both now in the Oldham squad.  Manny Monthe is Oldham’s 4th highest scorer with 4 goals so far.  Both Monthe and Norwood have played in about 60% of Oldham’s games this season.

Starting almost every game this season has been Oldham’s 6ft 3in Cameroonian striker, Mike Fondop-Talom (or just Mike Fondop for short!).  Fondop’s goal separated these two sides back in September.  The striker, who wears number 9, is Oldham’s leading scorer with 17 goals.  He also leads in assists with 5.

Mike Fondop, Oldham’s danger man and their top scorer.

Giant defender Manny Monthe was with Rovers in the National League and in League 2 between 2016 -18.  He then had spells with Tranmere, Walsall, & Northampton before joining Oldham in July ’24 on a free transfer.

Oldham manager Micky Mellon managed Manny when he was in charge at Tranmere and described him as a huge signing for Oldham.  The 29 year-old Cameroonian signed on a 2 year deal.  He wears the number 6.

Manny has already scored 4 goals for the Latics this campaign.

Manny Monthe in his FGR days.

34 year-old striker, James Norwood, joined FGR in 2011.  By 2015, he had scored 48 goals, overtaking Jam Klukowski to become FGR’s then all-time leading goalscorer.  Norwood moved on to spend 4 seasons at Tranmere, 3 at Ipswich, & 1 at Barnsley.  He moved to Oldham in 2023, making 40 appearances last season and scoring 17 goals.  This season he is their 2nd top scorer with 9 goals in the 25 matches he’s played for Oldham.  Norwood wears number 30.

James Norwood in his FGR days.  He is Oldham’s 2nd top scorer this season.

On 13 October 2023, Micky Mellon was appointed manager of Oldham Athletic on a three-year contract.  You may remember Mellon from his 2 spells in charge at Tranmere between 2016 and 2023.

Boundary Park, from the away end.

Oldham’s mascot – Chaddy the Owl.

On a hill where you can see the centre of Manchester, Oldham play at Boundary Park, the 3rd highest ground in the EFL. At 160 metres above sea level, only The New Lawn and The Hawthorns are higher. Boundary Park is so-called as it lies on the north-western boundary of Oldham.

Oldham have more local rivals than most. The stadiums of Rochdale Salford City, Huddersfield, Burnley, Bolton, Accrington, Blackburn & (until their expulsion from the league) Bury are all EFL teams within a 20 mile radius. Most Oldham supporters see Rochdale as their chief rivals these days but these rivalries are often eclipsed by hatred of two other teams who play less than 10 miles away – Manchester United and Manchester City.

In their history over the last 100 years Oldham have spent most of their time in the 2nd and 3rd tiers of the EFL. Under the stewardship of two of their longest serving managers, Jimmy Frizzell and Joe Royle, the club’s fortunes peaked with 3 seasons in the Premier League in the early 1990’s.  Joe Royle moved on to manage Everton and, since that time, it’s been mostly downhill.

In 2022 they descended into the 5th tier for the first time in their history (becoming the first former Premier League side to suffer this fate).  This coincided with a tumultuous four-and-a-half-year stint under the ownership of Abdallah Lemsagam.  Trigger-happy Lemsagam (who rattled through 13 managers in little more than 3 years), was at loggerheads with Oldham fans for most of the time, as Latics supporters found more and more inventive ways of protesting against their Moroccan owner.  Paul Scholes lasted just 31 days as manager before leaving, mentioning unwanted interference.

In 2022 local businessman Frank Rothwell completed a takeover of the club, simultaneously buying the club’s ground.

Paul Scholes lasted just 31 days as Oldham manager under their previous owner.

The town of Oldham, at its peak, was the most productive cotton-spinning mill town in the world.  At its peak, 360 mills worked day and night in the town.  But the industry declined during the 20th century and the last mill closed in 1998. Today, its population of over 100,00 is mostly residential.

In 2016, Oldham was ranked the most deprived town in England, an official study by the Office for National Statistics into housing and poverty.  It contained the highest proportion of deprived areas.

Famous Oldhamers (as people from Oldham are called) include presenters Phillip Schofield and Nick Grimshaw, actors Eric Sykes, Christopher Biggins, Bernard Cribbins, Dora Bryan, soap stars Shobna Gulati and Anne Kirkbride, physicist and science educator Brian Cox, and comedy duo Cannon & Ball. The town was also home to the bands Inspiral Carpets, N-Trance and Barclay James Harvest, as well as Take That’s Mark Owen.

Central Oldham.  Boundary Park is about a mile from the centre.