Latest news with #OldhamAthletic
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- Business
- The Guardian
A campaign intended to make football a little less silly
With a reduced slate of action and few transfers of note this week in the men's or women's game (unless you count Mainz signing forward and renowned Gwen Stefani fan Benedict Hollerbach), and still no word on Arne Slot's new residency in Ibiza, Football Daily was fast running out of content for Tuesday's missive. So thank goodness for the open letter from York City owner Julie-Anne Uggla addressed to the National League and the Football League, regarding the 'structurally unjust' promotion system in the fifth tier of English football, which sees just the regular season winners (this season: Barnet) and one playoff winner go up from six teams, who finished second to seventh. Hurray! Uggla is a supporter of the 3UP campaign, which proposes that there should be three (not two) teams promoted from the National League, adopting a similar system to the rest of the Football League. In the Championship, League One and League Two, at least two teams are promoted automatically (three in League Two!), with an additional team going up via the playoffs. It might surprise you to learn that York finished second in the National League, and failed to make the playoff final. Instead, Oldham Athletic, the feeder club of Football Daily's five-a-side team Old and Unathletic, returned to the EFL after beating Southend in the playoff final. For reference, Oldham and Southend finished 23 and 28 points behind York in the regular season, respectively. 'Such a glaring imbalance not only undermines sporting merit but erodes the very foundations of fair competition,' fumed Uggla. 'To dominate a league campaign so comprehensively (Barnet the only exception), only to be forced into a playoff lottery, is structurally unjust. It penalises excellence and rewards clubs with fewer points in a way no professional league system should condone. I urge both governing bodies to urgently consider transitional reform, whether via immediate review, temporary relief measures, or an accelerated implementation of the '3UP' model,' she continued. 'At the very least, this season's outcome should provoke an honest re-evaluation of what fairness in football truly means.' Uggla certainly has a valid point and the principle of fighting for 'fairness' on behalf of all football teams in the National League is a noble one, even if it is slightly soured by the fact that York, having finished second, would have been the key beneficiaries of a change. It might have been stronger for someone without a vested interest to lead the charge here, seeing as York started this season knowing full well what the format and rules were and only initially signed up to the '3UP' model in February, when they were unexpectedly in a three-horse race for the title. Uggla, who bought York in 2023, might also be unaware that the club have benefited from odd football rules of the past: City escaped dropping out of the Football League (the old Third Division) in 1977-78 season when relegation back then was decided not by league placing but by a vote where existing member clubs would just decide which one of the bottom teams would keep their place. Automatic relegation/promotion to/from the fifth tier did not exist at all until 1987, and the second playoff place was only introduced in 2003. All of that aside, Uggla is speaking sense. It is a little silly that York, who finished second on 96 points, were not promoted. But football is a bit silly, and had City instead finished seventh, would Uggla have been so vocal in fighting the good fight? I guess we'll never know. Join Yara El-Shaboury from 6pm BST for minute-by-minute coverage of Spain 3-1 England in the Women's Nations League. 'Of course that reaches you, but we don't care … actually, in fact, I would say thanks to them because it can be extra motivation, petrol to fuel you. And we won. Let them talk and do all the memes they want now' – Pedro Porro gets his chat on with Sid Lowe about Tottenham's Bigger Vase triumph, the 'Spursy' tag and Ange Postecoglou's future in N17. Re: yesterday's Football Daily. At least Inter didn't experience what the Italian team did when they returned home from England in 1966 after a dreadful World Cup. They had tomatoes thrown at them when they landed at the airport in Italy' – John Jones. In the past four years, I have gone from procrastinating at work, in exactly the same job, by endlessly writing to The Fiver to endlessly writing to Football Daily, whereas Vitinha has gone from his only goal at on loan at Wolves (one that wasn't even taken up by Wolves) to this. But, being a high achiever is vastly overrated, probably …' – Noble Francis. While searching for a receipt for a large donut order, I stumbled across an old tea-timely newsletter titled: 'Performing donuts in the centre circle in a car with square wheels.' I was struck by this particular quote: 'So Leicester City's dream of joining Midlands rivals Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa in the pantheon of unlikely European champions is over. A terrible shame but on the flip side they don't look like becoming irrelevant second-tier mediocrities any time soon, so it's swings and roundabouts.' While some things do change, it's reassuring to know that your curse of the commentator will always come true eventually' – Ian James. If you do have any, please send letters to Today's winner of our prizeless letter o' the day is … John Jones. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here. It's a Football Weekly end-of-season mailbag special. Here's David Squires on … the PSG fairytale. With the climate crisis causing our fine planet to heat up at an alarming rate, next year's World Cup³ in Mexico, USA USA USA and Canada, could be one of the toastiest in history. So, naturally, Thomas Tuchel wants his England players to earn it in the pursuit of global success. 'Suffering is one of the headlines for this World Cup,' he growled, while putting up tents in Girona for his players to train in. Yep, like a giant moth in a tracksuit, the England boss appears fascinated by flamin' hot heat. 'It is important to see matches now in [the USA USA USA], and in Miami at three in the afternoon,' he added. 'I will see that. How it looks, and we need to understand how to cool the players down, to drink. What our options are.' Sixteen stadiums will be used at World Cup³ with predictions of extreme temperatures. Water, please! Caoimhín Kelleher has joined Brentford from Liverpool, with Mark Flekken taking his gloves to Bayer Leverkusen to make way for the Republic of Ireland keeper. Manchester United are hoping to bring Brentford's Bryan Mbeumo and his epic beard to Old Trafford after missing out on Liam Delap. Meanwhile, Bruno Fernandes, whose five o'clock shadow needs a bit of work, has turned his nose up at a big-money deal to play in Saudi Arabia. In a stunning bit of business, Chelsea will pay a £5m penalty to send Jadon Sancho back to United when his loan ends. Lucy Bronze believes Arsenal's Women's Big Cup success against Barcelona can help England to win more shiny pots on the international stage. 'It exposes you to that feeling of playing in big finals, and to what it takes to win,' trilled the defender. 'When I first went to Lyon, that was what I wanted to do: test myself against the best.' West Brom have appointed Ryan Mason, still only 33, as their new boss. 'I will bring with me a huge amount of enthusiasm, dedication and ambition,' he boinged. ' I look forward to a positive future together.' In more red-hot managerial news, Rangers are reportedly close to installing chilled vibesman Russell Martin in the Ibrox dugout. And plane issues mean Scotland arrived with barely any time to prepare for their Women's Nations League match against the Netherlands in Tilburg. The Scottish FA said it made 'all efforts' to find a replacement flight but the charter company came up blank. In the latest edition of our sister email, Blackburn defender Rachel Dugdale takes us inside the plight of her club, forced to withdraw from WSL 2 last month. Who's in the running for the Ballon d'Or Ballon d'Or Ballon d'Or this year? Will Unwin sifts through the contenders, from Lamine Yamal to Ousmane Dembélé. Rashford and Højlund to Inter? Jobe Bellingham to Dortmund? Wednesday's Mill churns out the latest. And Michael Butler sticks the boot into post-season tours such as Manchester United's recent Asian jaunt, an environmentally ruinous strain on player wellbeing. We're lingering a bit on Milan Malpensa airport, admittedly, but here's a young Inter fan in August 2002, waiting to see Ronaldo – fresh from winning the World Cup with Brazil – return from international duty and a 1-0 defeat against Paraguay. Sadly for them, the player was keeping a low profile, slipping off the plane away from the public's gaze, amid controversy about his future, before moving to Real Madrid the following month.
BBC News
12 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Oldham to 'start again' ahead of League Two return
Oldham chairman Frank Rothwell has said the club "have to start again" after their dramatic promotion back into the English Football Latics were facing another season in the National League when they trailed Sunday's promotion final at Wembley in extra-time against goals in two extra-time minutes from substitutes James Norwood and Kian Harratt, however, snatched an incredible 3-2 club had a celebratory event at Boundary Park on Monday evening and Rothwell said the hard work will start told BBC Radio Manchester: "In extra time we had to come back again and score twice and my faith was wavering at that point."I was thinking about doing another whole year to get promoted but we scored and I couldn't believe it. It looked like penalties which are the flip of a coin and then we scored again."It was unbelievable, it was only three minutes before that my son was looking very dejected. All of our plans for the future revolved around us going up and it was slipping away."We have to start again now." Oldham were relegated from League Two in 2022 after a tumultuous spell under the ownership of Abdallah took charge later that summer and said the club have learned from their mistakes in the said: "We are gong to build around the players who are under contract. The previous owners interfered too much with team selection, they did all the buying and selling of players."We have no input into the manager's strategy. I am sure Micky Mellon has people in mind for next season and is pondering his next move."
BBC News
13 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Southend driven to 'attack next season'
Southend United chairman Justin Rees says the club will target automatic promotion next season after losing to Oldham Athletic in the 2024-25 National League play-off final at Shrimpers secured the last play-off spot on the final day of the campaign and then won away at Rochdale and Forest Green Rovers to reach the twice took the lead at the national stadium as they attempted to regain English Football League status, but Oldham eventually won 3-2."I woke up the next day really, really driven, it's only nine weeks to next season. That should tell us that if you want to play in big games, cup games, play-off games, the more of them you play, unfortunately you are going to taste agony sometimes," Rees told BBC Essex's Breakfast Show."We want to be back in that EFL. We should all be driven by this disappointment to attack next season and be chasing the top honours rather than jumping in there [the play-offs] on the final day." Australian businessman Rees led the COSU consortium (Custodians of Southend United) which took over the club from former owner Ron Martin last summer following years of financial problems which had threatened the club's he is happy to let the players and supporters be the focus of attention at the club, saying: "As owners our job is to steer the club into safer waters, (and) ideally be more in the background than the foreground." A report published last month revealed that "intercompany loans totalling £19.4m were written off" as part of the takeover process and that the club made a £2.65m pre-tax loss in the 12 months ending July plans to upgrade parts of their Roots Hall stadium are ongoing and attention will now turn to providing a squad for boss Kevin Maher and his staff to ensure they hit the ground running in the new season."We're all deflated but not devastated," said chief executive Tom Lawrence."If you'd said to me 12 months ago, would you take ending up at Wembley and just losing out in a play-off final - if you roll back 18 months we were a heartbeat away from going out of existence, so in the context of everything that's gone on, what the players, Kevin and the management team have achieved is just incredible. "We'll be back in the office tomorrow to go again and start building for next season. We just need to grow and become stronger."
BBC News
19 hours ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Shaun Hobson racist abuse fan will be banned, says Southend
Southend United FC has said the person who sent racist abuse to an Oldham Athletic player will be banned from matches once they are Latics beat Southend 3-2 after extra time in the National League play-off final at Wembley Stadium on the match, Oldham defender Shaun Hobson shared a screenshot of a private message he received and wrote that he was "not angry, just disappointed".Hobson played for the Shrimpers before making the switch to Oldham in 2023. The 26-year-old appeared in the final as a substitute in the 98th message was believed to have been sent by a Southend fan and the club said it "strongly condemns the racial abuse"."The incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and we are working closely with them to identify the perpetrator, who will be subject to a club ban. Such abuse is vile and will not be tolerated," said a Southend club said it had reached out to Oldham and Hobson to "apologise and offer its full support while our investigation continues"."Racism has no place in football or society and the club would like to reaffirm its zero-tolerance stance against any form of discrimination," a spokesperson said. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
ABC News
21 hours ago
- Lifestyle
- ABC News
I flew from Brisbane to London at short notice to see Southend United play at Wembley Stadium — they lost, but that's not what matters
You'd have every reason to think I am completely insane. Perhaps I am. I'm going to ignore this brief window of introspection though. After all, passion can manifest in a multitude of silly ways. Like flying to the other side of the world on a moment's notice (OK, four days' notice) for a football match between Southend United and Oldham Athletic — two clubs you've likely never heard of — in the National League promotion final at Wembley Stadium, London. That's England's fifth-tier competition — these clubs finished 97 and 99 rungs down the ladder from Premier League winners Liverpool in football's meritorious hierarchy. A bloody long way from where I was 72 hours earlier in Brisbane, Australia. That's right, somewhat inexplicably, I embarked on a 33,072-kilometre round trip, with an absurd amount of anxiety and stress, and spent, quite frankly, an eye-watering amount of money for a single football match. So I tell myself to try not to think of the money. Heavens, don't do that. And certainly don't pause to think of what this does to your carbon footprint, which must be growing ominously like a boot's shadow over a hapless bug. No. Because as much as your rational self knows this trip is lunacy, your heart tells you that it is essential. On Wembley Way, English football's very own yellow brick road but miles from my own land of Australia, there was vindication for my madness. Instead of thinking about why you shouldn't be there, you remember the photo from the game before that sparked this insanity. You think of the crowd of men and women in the process of leaping to their feet as one, roaring in ecstasy like some primal, human explosion. You think of the two men in mid-scream at the heart of that photo — your brothers. You think of the man top left — one of your oldest friends, mouth open, leaning forward as he gets to his feet amidst the surge of emotion of those around him. You think of your niece, representing her school team in one of the curtain-raiser matches on such hallowed turf. You think of the focus of their joy, their club — my club — inexplicably making yet another comeback to surge into a Wembley final. The club that a little over a year ago should probably have been wound up by the courts, 118 years of history extinguished by a judge very reasonably acting in the interests of any number of creditors who deserved their dues. And Southend fans had reason to fear because, as any Bury fan will tell you, history means nothing when the creditors come calling and the apathetic authorities stand aside. That was your club that was being run into the ground. Your club has not only been a driver of your formative years, it has nurtured and nourished generations of supporters since 1906. Your family. Your friends. Your city. Your club. Rationality is a meaningless irrelevance in the midst of such powerful emotional blackmail. Let's rewind a bit because none of the above has a hope of making sense without some much-needed context. Much like many young kids in England, I was afflicted by the national obsession that is association football. Juvenile flirtations with the mega clubs of the 90s Premier League eventually gave way to the novelty of going to see my local team live, just down the road from my high school, as a teenager. The mockery directed towards my match-going friends for supporting a downtrodden club was replaced by an admiration for the depth of their faith and the lengths to which they would go to follow this ragtag group through the lower leagues of English football. Roots Hall, Southend United's dilapidated home, became a weekly focus, its floodlights resembling a quartet of iron sentinels standing guard over the flimsy dreams and misguided ambitions of so many Saturday afternoons and Tuesday nights. So many hours spent uncomfortably in the cold under its semicircular iron roof, staring at the verdant patch of grass that even to a child looked smaller than what I expected from TV. So many trips around the country to stadiums big and small, from Carlisle to Swansea, and just about every town in between, with my oldest friends Alex and Paul. Despite happily living on the other side of the world, the absence of those connections carved out during the shared experiences of youth is a lasting sore on any expat. And so many of those experiences, for me at least, were cemented through adventures with this football club. And yet this football club's very existence has been under threat. This side that flirted with the upper tiers of what is now known as the Championship in the early 90s, a team that held the then-European Champions Liverpool to a 0-0 draw in the FA Cup in 1979, a team that, on its last foray up the league pyramid beat Manchester United in the League Cup in 2006. From those heights, the club has plummeted. Successive relegations and several winding-up orders put the club out of the football league and into the fifth tier. A laboured and protracted sale of the club had the National League enforce an unprecedented 1 million pound (more than $2 million) bond on the club to even play in the league this past season, as it enforced yet another transfer embargo on the club pending its eventual, belated sale to a consortium led by Australian Justin Rees. Oh, ye of little faith. As Southend manager Kevin Maher wrote in his match program notes for this final: "12 months ago and we didn't know if we'd even have a football club. You got that right. Despite that troubled start to the season, Southend repeatedly took thousands of fans home and away across the country, from Gateshead to Nailsworth, Boston to Yeovil. And then, claiming the last play-off spot in the final game of the season, proceeded to come from behind to beat both Rochdale (4-3 after extra-time) and Forest Green Rovers (2-2, 4-2 on penalties) away from home. Two teams had their stories played out in north London on Sunday and Oldham's is no less befitting a mammoth journey. The Latics have had their moments of pain and anguish over the three decades since they were one of the foundation teams of the Premier League. In its owner, Frank Rothwell — a man so delightfully northern that even his blood cells probably have their own flat caps — Oldham has a genuine fan who has the exceptional distinction of raising millions of pounds for charity and is committed to using his fortune to raise his town up. "The only thing I want to do with the rest of my days is help to make Oldham a better place for everybody, and that doesn't just mean taking our football club back into the League," Rothwell told the Mirror, heralding Oldham Athletic as a vehicle to help integrate the 30 per cent Asian population of the town. "We are breaking down barriers in our town. Oldham Athletic is going to be a force for unity." A local man done good, Rothwell is spending most of his later years completing increasingly arduous challenges to raise money for charity — he twice solo rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in his 70s and has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro — as well as saving the Latics. "Getting Oldham Athletic back on its feet has been the hardest [challenge I've done] by far," he told the Mirror. "The place was feeling a bit sorry for itself and its very existence was on the line. "We were so close to extinction the coroner was on stand-by." A first promotion in 35 years, arresting the inexorable slide from the top table to the basement, would be the crowning glory. Sunday morning. Thin sunlight shining its unforgiving rays on a largely deserted, dilapidated high street in Southend. It's seen better days, as has much of high street UK in the era of out-of-town retail centres and internet shopping. Would the smattering of people currently ambling along it be dreaming that, come 5pm, this day would rate as one of the football club's best? Those people in Southend United's blue shirts cast knowing glances at each other, wry smiles filled with optimism, hope, fear, excitement, and every possible emotion, as over 30,000 make the pilgrimage to Wembley. Thousands on trains. Thousands on buses. Wembley, when we get there, is a sea of blue — either the navy hue of Southend or Oldham's cobalt. A record crowd, 52,115 (this is England's fifth tier remember) all singing and dancing and roaring their charges onwards. Southend fans unveil a tifo as revealing as anything the club has been through over the last few years as the players run out amidst the pageantry and pyrotechnics at England's footballing cathedral — "NEVER GIVE UP" written large below the silhouette of a young fan who helped tidy Roots Hall during the club's darkest moments. Tell yourself it's not about the result as tears prick at the corner of your eyes at this reminder of the club's defiance. Sure, keep telling yourself that, a desperate attempt at self-preservation over this foolhardy venture. Keep telling yourself that when Southend takes the lead inside the opening 10 minutes and the southern half of Wembley erupts, strangers hugging each other across the aisles. Keep telling yourself that when Oldham equalises from the penalty spot just after half-time. Keep telling yourself that as the teams play out nine excruciating minutes of injury time before the torture begins anew with 30 minutes of extra-time, in which Southend retake the lead almost immediately after kicking off. And keep telling yourself that after Oldham score twice within a minute to ruin your dreams and crush your spirit. The thing is, I think I probably believe it. This will be more difficult to grasp for those who don't believe, but the result is only a small part of the journey — while success is welcomed with open arms, few embark upon a lifetime of supporting their local lower league club with expectations of glory. And the journey for these Southend United fans was about so much more than victory in a one-off game. This is about the journey this community has been on over so many years, where hope and belief have been so painfully hard to come by. A community that has been dumped on and come within a hair's-breadth of extinction, saved only by a moment of benevolence and having the chance to experience this moment of togetherness, and so many others, saved. Even the act of coming together for this moment by the communities of Southend and Oldham was polluted and threatened by the organisational incompetence of the National League, Wembley Stadium, Transport for London and Brent Council. With planned engineering works at Wembley Park station, authorities had capped the attendance at Wembley at 35,000, a figure circumvented by the hiring of convoy coaches by the clubs and constant lobbying from club staff and politicians from both Essex and Lancashire. The 52,115 that were in the ground made this the highest attendance ever for a National League play-off final. No matter what obstacles were put ahead of these clubs and their supporters, they were still there. We were all still there. More than 50,000 of us from two clubs on the brink a matter of years ago. "What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it," former England manager Sir Bobby Robson said of his beloved Newcastle United. "It's the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. "It's a small boy clambering up the stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father's hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him, and without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love." That's what made this trip worth it.
