The Hashtag - by Robin McGrother

The hashtag OAFC regularly trends on twitter, though rarely for the right reasons.

This section is an attempt to give an overview of the weeks main activity on the hashtag.

It can be a bit of a rollercoaster and we can’t possibly touch on everything, but hopefully this can help people who don’t use the app, or are unaware of its existence.

It’s a vibrant community, full of differing opinions and points of view. It can be heartbreaking, nostalgic, or just plain infuriating but it’s a great barometer of feeling from passionate people who care about their cub. Sometimes it’s daft, oft time’s it’s sweary, but it can be really informative and usually it’s quite funny.

We started the week with the fall out from Saturday’s last minute winner. The tweets were mainly complimentary, with a l

ot of love going out to the captain Pidge & especially Junior Luamba. Our captain won a deserved place on the Sky Bet League 2 team of the week. A highlight of the celebrations was a great photo of a young fan cheering with Davis Keillor Dunn and Junior Luamba, posted by, among others, Andy Higgins. The sentiment was very much hoping he had a club to support in the future. The theme throughout the discussions afterwards was that it was great to see a win, especially in such circumstances, but it changes very little about the discontent about the way the club is being run.

We followed up with a JPL cup match against our ‘apparent’ local rivals Salford City.

A now familiar demonstration of discontent at the regime and its management of the club followed and the reaction was best described by a tweet from Joe Robinson - “It’s a protest gesture against the owner - nothing to do with the outcome of the game”

Off the pitch it was a tense week for the fans of the team from a town of chimneys, on twitter.

Deadline day had us all with our hearts in our mouths, probably best encapsulated with these 2 tweets.

“For the love of God please do not sell Bahamboula on deadline day” by Chris Smith, and replied to by maxOAFC with simply “I swear to God”

Thankfully we kept the jewel in our crown, and so, for now, Bahamboula does indeed Bang the Drum.

Following his appearance on The Boundary Park Alert System, people started to receive their copies of Mike Keegan’s book. Twitter was

ablaze with positivity. Poignant reminiscence for the elders, and a glimmer of hope of what is possible for the youths.

In a strange moment, even for #oafc, an ex-director sent a tweet complaining that his phone number had been published. Obviously this is quite an unfair thing to do, and no one should have their personal details published without prior consent, but this was slightly undermined when it became apparent that he was complaining about his own tweet, in which he had published his own phone number.

Perhaps the most important event of the week was a meeting between the Administration of the club and the 2 FSA registered fan groups - PTB & The Oldham Athletic Foundation. The Foundation put out a brief statement referring to the meeting, while PTB were a little more forceful in their response. The Administration were expected to make some sort of statement towards the end of the week. This turned out to be a ban on flags directed at the Athleticos - the singing lunatics who wreck their vocal chords every match. This did not go down well, and the hashtag came alive recognising this to be an attempt to silence dissent against the current administration. The decision by the clubs administration was universally condemned, and the Athelticos have decided to boycott all home games until this ban has been rescinded. Boundary Park will be diminished, and the benefit to the team will be difficult to justify, especially as players & trainers had just commented on how much of a boost our support gives to them.

It was also followed by a statement from PTB which referred to this and outlined their strategy going forward.

To finish off the roundup for this week, in a bit of light hearted tomfoolery, No Scow Draws @Cheap Panini offered to create Poorly Drawn Oldham legends. As advertised, it was a certain level of horror. If you dare, seek out Gunner Halle, but be warned, none of them are good, but they are all magnificent. Check out David Wheater's one!

This week's post is from Robin McGrother, who lives in France and is active on the hashtag as @McgrotherRobin.

Thanks for the post Robin, we'd like one of these every week please!

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