Yesterday morning, I realised that Oldham were playing away, but were only playing down in Stoke, which is about an hour's drive from my parents' place in North East Manchester. So, having not yet been to an Oldham match the entire season (not since I was about 10 years old have I been able to say that), I decided I would head out and take in my first match of the season!
An hour's drive later, I arrived in Burslem, some suburb of Stoke, slightly delapidated and displaying the effects of what some would say is post-industrial Britain. I paid my £4 parking, deciding it was better to do that than find some chav breaking into my car when I returned to it (as has happened before when leaving my car near Oldham's ground for a home match!).
The chap on the turnstile relieved me of £19 for the joy of watching Port Vale, marooned at the bottom of the League One table with 5 wins from 33 matches so far, against Oldham, the epitome of mediocreness - played 33, won 11, drawn 11, lost 11.
I've been to Port Vale to watch Oldham play on at least two previous occasions: one Oldham won, and another Oldham lost. Oldham's usual trait at Port Vale is to lose: Port Vale are Oldham's bogey side, as the lingo goes. In fact, in my lifetime, Oldham had won just once at Port Vale, 12 years previously (and to my distress I had been there, making me feel old).
The first thing that hit me was the lack of people in the ground to watch the game. Numbers on the internet later told me Oldham took 785 supporters there, and "swelled" the attendance to 3,700. But if I looked around stadium, it was simply a mass of empty seats. Clearly being adrift at the bottom of the table has taken its toll on Port Vale.
Then the game began, and quickly I found that Oldham supporters haven't changed too much. They still sing about how much they hate other teams, rather than how much they like Oldham. They still sing about how they hate Man United, as if it matters! We were last in the same division at Man United 14 years ago now, and the chances of it happening again in the near future are slim to zero. But still, we do really hate them, apparently.
The game was played in windy conditions, on a pretty poor pitch, making it hardly the greatest spectacle ever. But not long in, on 21 minutes, a floated ball into the area found Oldham loanee Jordan Roberton, who hit a superb volley into the net. Sadly this was at the far end of the pitch, so it was hard to see its full glory. Nonetheless, 1-0 to Oldham!
Port Vale then came into the match, and almost certainly should have levelled the scores, first when a complete mix-up between an Oldham defender and keeper Crossley left the ball rolling across goal. Thankfully another defender ran in to hoof the ball away. Secondly, another defensive melee minutes later saw the ball fall to a Vale player about 3 yards out, but his shot cannoned off a defender and on to the cross bar. Another let off.
In fact, if I ever saw a match which confirmed that when you're near the bottom, it all goes against you, this was it. Oldham's keeper pulled off a great save to deny another attempt by Vale, but the second half was almost entirely one-way traffic. Port Vale hit the post, a player of theirs twice rounded the Oldham keeper, only in one case to miss the open goal, and in another case to be crowded out by defenders. Oldham's keeper also made a number of good saves.
But to add gross insult to injury, with 13 minutes left and Oldham still hanging on to their 1-0 lead by some miracle, a long ball forward hit a Vale defender, and almost rebounded past their goalkeeper for a spectacular own goal. The keeper though responded well, and saved the unfortunate ricochet. However, in a most bizarre decision, the referee decided this was a deliberate pass back to the goalkeeper, and awarded Oldham a free kick right in front of goal!
Few people, even the Oldham fans, could quite believe it, and understandably the Port Vale fans and players were livid. I'm not sure I ever want to condone intimidation of the referee, but I could certainly understand their frustrations, having worked so hard, been so close to getting a goal and a win finally, to be undone by a seriously bad mistake by the referee must have been a hard pill to swallow.
The pill became even harder to swallow when Oldham dispatched the free kick into the bottom of the goal, via Neal Eardley, their Welsh International full back. At 2-0, the game was almost up, though still there was time for a superb double save by Oldham's keeper to deny another almost certain goal.
Into injury time at the end of the game, a long ball forward saw an Oldham substitute Wolfrenden race on to it, and delightfully loft the ball over the goalkeeper to score Oldham's third. This gave the scoreline an even harsher look for Port Vale. I've certainly never been to watch a more unfair 3-0 scoreline before, but it was pleasing for me that Oldham were on the end of some good fortune...
