No. 85: Boundary Park [Oldham Athletic]

Sunday, 3rd May 2015
Oldham Athletic v. Peterborough United [League One] 1-1

Waking up a little hungover in a Blackburn hotel room after a night drinking one too many fizzy lagers, I was glad I only had a short hop over the West Pennines to Oldham on this Sunday morning.

I was not so glad that the Football League had again deemed apt a 12.15 kick-off for the final games of the League One season. This meant I was still on the road by 9.30am in order to have a look around the town pre-match, a little bleary-eyed.

Oldham is one of those places never likely to be on most tourists' bucket list - and that's not because there is anything particularly unpleasant about this town, it's just that there is nothing to particularly to see here at all - pleasant or unpleasant.

Oldham Parish Church & War Memorial.

Little more than a scattering of houses across moorlands until the 18th century, Oldham came into being as a 'new' factory town thanks to the Industrial Revolution: its location in between Manchester and Yorkshire made it an ideal location for situating the many cotton mills.

Indeed, Oldham was the centre of the world's cotton-spinning for much of the 19th century - and at its peak in the early 20th century there were 360 mills here, with the bulk of the town's population employed in cotton-spinning or the coal-mining industry that supported it.

So Oldham really is the epitome of a northern industrial town with very little history before the factories came here.

As such, also being only 7 miles north of Manchester, a lot of the culture and identity of Oldham is subsumed within the great city on its doorstep.

So it's difficult to find something culturally "Oldham" that isn't just an extension of the Metropolitan area of which it is a constituent part. Especially at 10am on a Sunday morning! But I did try.

I parked up next to the pretty parish church with its impressive war memorial in the town centre, and went for a quick stroll around to see what there was to see.

As stated, it being early on a Sunday morning, the answer was not very much. If I'd had a bit more time and it hadn't been such an early start, I'm sure it would have been a bit more lively.

Some Sights of Oldham Town Centre on a Sunday Morning. Mostly Closed.

But as it was the Tommyfield Market was closed, The Hamilton Arcade was closed, The Snipe Inn was closed, and I'd bloody well missed the Oldham Real Ale Festival by 24 hours as well. Miserable!

There was little to do really than to grab myself some breakfast and head off to the game. My choice was the usual high street fast food and bakery chains, or to try a local greasy spoon cafe near the closed marketplace that looked a little rough and ready.

Well, rough and ready seems to be my watchword on these 92 Club trips, so into the Blue Onion Cafe was where I headed for a £2.95 'Budget Breakfast' and a cup of builders' tea. Lovely stuff, although my jumper did seem to be sticking to a thick layer of grime on the table, and the ceiling seemed to be leaking into my tea at the corner of my window-side table. The Ritz this wasn't - but the grub was hearty fare enough.

Blue Onion Cafe, Oldham. A proper greasy spoon!

Vote Bez. If you like.

I've already mentioned that Manchester is on the doorstep, so its influence in Oldham is strong. The Blue Onion cafe certainly ran with that, as I was treated to an endless loop of Simply Red's greatest hits whilst reading an election flyer for former-Happy Monday's dancer Bez's Reality Party.

Mad fer it.

As this was written before the general election, I'm unsure at this stage if Bez was actually elected into power but I wish him well in that effort.

Satisfactorily sated, I hoped in the car and drove off to the game at Boundary Park. Except, it isn't officially called that anymore. For sponsorship purposes I'm supposed to refer to it as Sportsdirect.com Park.

I'm not going to do that though. This is Boundary Park.

The New 'North Stand' - Opening in 2015.

There is a lot of change here though. The first thing you notice when parking up in the car park is the looming unfinished edifice of the new North Stand - currently being completely rebuilt to a modern spec and set for opening next season.

George Hill Main Stand, Boundary Park.

The new stand will be in stark contrast to the rest of the ground, and in particular the George Hill Main Stand that I had a seat in this afternoon. The current Main Stand dates from 1913 and it shows its age in places, but it reeks of character and I have to admit I love watching football from a stand like this.

Rustic Seating - Main Stand.

Squeezing through a tight iron turnstile, walking up crumbling concrete staircases surrounded by painted brick walls, there is a  faint aroma of mildew present as you pass upwards, emerging from the tinted darkness of the concourse to within view of the pitch as the sky opens up above you.


What a fantastic and atmospheric way to enter a football ground, and without wanting to labour the point, an experience that is dying out slowly but surely with modern stadium developments.

Necessary, I know, but still slightly unwelcome for me.

I took my seat - actually a long wooden back with a flimsy plastic flip-chair tacked onto it, and revelled in the uncomfortable squeeze and the view partially obscured by the posts holding the roof up. This was proper football indeed!

View from back of Main Stand, towards Rochdale Road End.

A view shared by my neighbours sat on the wooden bench-backs, a party of Dutch groundhoppers who had the day before been at Old Trafford watching Manchester United. Why had they decided to come and watch Oldham today, I asked them.

"This is real football - a real ground, real fans, and this is what really it is all about. This will be a real atmosphere today, we can't wait for it!"

I agreed with him on the sentiment about the realness of it, but I did temper his expectations somewhat that he was unlikely to get much of an atmosphere in a end of the season game between two teams with nothing left to play for in front of fewer than 4,000 fans.

Looking towards Main Stand from back of the Rochdale Road End.

Their enthusiasm couldn't be dampened though, and they spent the game enthusiastically joining in with cheers and songs for the home team, even when that meant just screaming random vowel sounds when they didn't quite know the words. Fair play to them.

And fair play too must be given to the 'Athleticos' in the bottom corner of the Chaddy Road end. A group of young fans who despite their need for a fucking drum (sorry, I don't approve of drums to create atmosphere), were in fine voice throughout the game.

Chaddy End Athleticos: Topoff visible bottom right.

Chief amongst their number was a 15-year old lad that I was told attends every Oldham game, cheerleading the Athleticos without his shirt on. He's rather predictably known as "Topoff" and was indeed quite visible throughout.

It was quite a mild afternoon so I'm sure Topoff's mother wouldn't be worried about him catching his death on this occasion. But as Boundary Park is anecdotally known as "the coldest ground in the Football League", I'd be interested to return to the ground former manager Joe Royle christened 'Ice Station Zebra' in mid-December and see if Topoff has actually turned blue.

Perhaps this would be his way of proving he genuinely is "Oldham till he dies" after all, turning the actual colour of his beloved team's shirt and freezing to death in the Chaddy Road End. Silly sod.

The game itself was a lot better than expected given its dead rubber status. Oldham grabbed the lead within 10 minutes from a sliced header that looped past Peterborough's keeper from man of the match Dominic Poleon, who ran the Posh full-backs ragged down the left wing in the first half.

I had a front-seat view of this from the front row of the upper Main Stand and quite enjoyed the display - so much for two teams going through the motions. The game did tail off a bit in the second half until former world-record triple-jumper Jonathan Edwards was sent off for Peterborough for a scything tackle.

The Sending-Off of Jonathan Edwards. Inset: The Moment Before Impact.

I suggest sticking to the day job, Jonathan.

Oldham took their foot off the gears a little after this and despite having a man advantage, conceded the equaliser shortly after the sending-off.

I've never quite understood why, but it does seem to be an unwritten rule of football that the team with a man sent off always rallies and often get something out of a game they looked less-likely to get when the teams were evenly-numbered. Go figure.

By the time of the final whistle, even the now mostly drunk Dutch guys had pretty much had enough as the game fizzled out to a slow finish. The game being something of a metaphor for both teams' mediocre season, starting optimistically but ending with a slow drawn-out fight for mid-table mediocrity.

Turnstiles and Rochdale Road End Behind, Boundary Park.

With the final whistle, a few hundred Oldham fans spilled over the advertising hoardings for a quick aimless run around the pitch as is the time-honoured end-of-season tradition (again bonkers given they've not achieved anything!).

I did consider running on myself just for the hell of it, but decided instead for a few moments of reflection from my wood and plastic seat.

I took a little time to say goodbye to this fine rickety old Main stand whilst looking out at the empty concrete building site opposite, a football pitch separating 100 years of football development. And a very fine position to finish and reflect on my own amazing 2014-2015 season.

Oldham's New North Stand: Coming for the 2015-16 Season.

I haven't quite finished the 92 yet, but I'm down to single-figures and unless I die or something, it'll be complete at some time within the next year.

I've been to some amazing places since August that I wouldn't have otherwise gone, done more culture than I've ever done around a football game and eaten some amazing and some questionable food.

I've also been to some absolute fucking shitholes I'd initially rather not have been in - but by trying to look on the positive side for this blog, I've actually found a positive side for all of them (even Luton!) and can genuinely say I'm glad I did every single one of the games I've blogged this season.

Seven more to go then (actually eight because of Barnet's promotion!) and I'll be back sometime in August to complete them. See you then!

With thanks to David Finnegan (@Aldehulme).

NEXT UP : TBC in August 2015!