The Year Of Purification

Preparations on HMS Piss The League continue to give cause for optimism. I wasn't at the games at Curzon Ashton or Barrow, so I'll leave it to others to report back, but Big Mike is continuing to justify calling himself God's Number 9, and whatever you think of Joe Nuttall it was great to see him get on the scoresheet. The waters are seldom smooth for us, though, and after he's looked so impressive in pre season we can only hope that Josh Lundstram's injury isn't serious.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the Rothwells being unveiled as our new owners. What a day that was. I'm sure winning trebles is all very nice, but our flash bastard neighbours will never know the joy of drinking champagne in a car park while a septuagenarian in a flat cap waves at you from a window.

The club marked the occasion by putting out yet another brilliant video. Luke spoke about 'selling the family silver' to buy the club, but Su made it clear they had no regrets: "it was just the right thing to do, we love our town and we're in a fortunate position where we can give back to our town". We were long overdue a bit of luck, but how lucky are we to have this family rescue our club?

In the extended interview on the website, Luke and Su spoke about how there ended up being quite a tight time window to get the deal done in time for the press conference that had been arranged as Simon Blitz was about to get on a transatlantic flight. The deal went through with Blitz signing before he got on his plane, Abdallah signing his side of it in Dubai, and Frank heard the deal had gone through while on a ferry to Hull. New York, Dubai, Hull. That kind of sums up our journey over the last twenty years. And I'm delighted at where we are now.

Su also said that Luke turned to her before a board meeting and asked "do you think this will ever feel normal?". Welcome to Oldham Athletic, Luke. We don't do normal.

Frank, as ever, stole the show in the video. You'll all have had your own point in the video when you welled up, but for me it was Frank saying "what is special is I've realised how much I love Oldham... I really love Oldham." Gulp. The feeling is very much mutual.

We've hit the jackpot with the Rothwells, and God were we owed it. Our opponents in our first league game haven't been so lucky yet. As I write this, there's still been no announcement about tickets for Southend, and there's rumours that the game will be switched to Boundary Park. Keep an eye on social media, I'm sure OASF will be in discussion with our Shrimper counterparts about how we can support them. And if any of the Irrelevant Element who've been sniping on Twitter about how our 'love in' with other clubs makes them sick are reading (I doubt it): it's called solidarity. It's like the opposite of being a self absorbed weirdo who spends all their time being a dickhead on social media for attention.

We go into the final week preparing the ship, then, and the pitch makes its playing debut today. Come down and check it out. It's beautiful. You could play billiards on it. It's a lovely green representation of what a difference a year makes. KTMFF.

Written by Arlene Finnigan. Photos © Oldham Athletic.