Dear Fellow Supporters,

Welcome back to another exciting season supporting the Latics from abroad. I hope you all had a good break and enjoyed the sun. On a personal note I returned from Mexico last Friday. I now speak fluent Spanish, test me out. I'm a natural. I soon progressed from "Me and her-o wanto a roomo". Unfortunately me and Mrs. Chairman ended up enfermo and spent half the time in our quarto de bano doing the lambada (I think that's the equivalent of the European Turkey trot). One good thing to come out of the trip was that we had four recorded episodes of Coronation Street waiting for us upon our return. The promised changes have been made and our leagues have a new look. Special mention must go to Helmut Buhl who becomes the first member to ever gain promotion to the Premier League (they say everybody is famous for 15 mins. in their lifetime).

Congratulations must also go out to Jim Rush and Carol Read who became the first ever LSC members to get married. What's the odds on their first son being called Moses? Good luck to Mr. & Mrs. Rush and let's hope they don't start supporting Leeds United! I would also like to welcome any new members to the club and let them know that it if they persevere it is possible to reach the Premier League in a season. I intend to be ruthless with non attenders and reward loyal fans. Here's to another great season and let's hope we can celebrate with promotion to the Premier League for the team also.

The Chairman.

Graeme Sharp and Colin Harvey have been handed another chance to take Athletic back into the promised land of the Premiership. The club Chairman, lan Stott, believes they can restore the club to its former glory and said the board was unanimous in its support. Sharp succeeded Joe Royle in November 1994 and had an unenviable task last season. Mr. Stott confirmed that Sharp's movements in the transfer market will be restricted by the club's empty coffers. Good luck to both of them from the L. S.C.

The second pub in our fascinating new series is:
CONFECTIONERS ARMS, 35, Market Street.

The pub had a short career. It was licensed cl 860 and closed in the early 1880's. Only two landlords were recorded, John Chadderton (1860) and Jessie Angus (1880). The more intelligent of you may be able to work out my approximate age as this series is called "Pubs I Have Supped In". As you know the legal drinking age is 18 in England but the law were not as vigilant in the 1800's. Who said drinking is bad for you? I attribute my longevity to the odd tipple. My mother used to say "everything in moderation". She still does. The only time I ever abused alcohol was when I had a glass knocked over - that's why I drink so fast now!

I. Will B. Drunk.

In a match between Barbados and Grenada, Barbados needed to win by two clear goals to progress to the next round. A rule stated that in the event of a game going to penalty kicks the winning team would be awarded a 2-0 victory. With 5 mins. to go, Barbados were winning 2-1 and going out of the tournament. Realising they were not going to score they turned around and deliberately scored an own goal to level the scores. Grenada, realising what was going on, themselves attempted to score an own goal. The Barbados players started defending their opponents goal to prevent this. In an incredible finish both teams were defending their opponents goals against attackers desperately trying to score an own goal The game eventually went to penalties and Barbados won. The game was televised live.

Sorry I haven’t corresponded of late but I have been moving house. We were disappointed to hear you wouldn't be coming over in summer to watch a few games, maybe next year? I missed Saturday's game but we were unlucky to lose as we had two goals disallowed. Sue and Nikki both loved our new player, Paul Morrow, although he is only 4ft. short. Gerrard moved to Everton but Makin to a French club for nowt is a bit of a blow. I blame Stott as I think he is using Sharp to do the dirty work of cutting the wage bill, getting rid of Ritchie etc and all in the name of cost cutting while I've heard he's on £60,000 a year, if that’s true then it's bloody scandalous.

Radio Latics just has a licence to transmit for 30 days so they can only do the season and cup games. Eurodisney was brilliant. It was like Christmas. We had two weeks in Wales again and the weather was good. A friend of ours is going to Vancouver on 30th. of August so he might attend one of your meetings. You can't miss him. He's got short hair, a moustache and wears glasses. Keep the faith.

Nobby.

Ed's comment to all supporters - Keep your eyes out for the visitor.

Dear Sir,

The decline in world standards can be directly attributed to political correctness (even the name sends shudders down my spine). A radio news bulletin in England suggested that teachers should not mark pupils' work with a red pen because red was aggressive. Instead, green was put forward as an alternative. Obviously, the suggestion must have been put forward by one of those daft bodies who think that rules and regulations will mean that nobody will ever be hurt, upset, downcast or made to feel inferior. Why stop at red pens? Why not root out all those aggressive drivers who buy red cars? Let's ban football teams from playing in red also. I would suggest pink as an alternative but you might think I was being sexist! What a load of rubbish! Given a box of childrens' crayons I am sure kids will happily work their way through the lot without any silly ideas that one colour reflects something over another one. Anyway, highlighting mistakes is unpopular with many in the educational lobby. Here at the Latics Supporters Club we are very fortunate that the Chairman does not go in for political correctness and possesses the necessary j e ne saia quio that we need. Have you seen any Ms. on the list?

When a famous footballer says "I never bothered at school, I can’t spell and it never bothered me", it affects children. Thousands see working hard at football as a sensible use of their time. Being unable to spell is labelled "a special learning difficulty", so ‘little Jimmy's" failure to learn is accepted and pressure is taken off. His parents have been told make him feel good about himself, so when his friends are doing homework, Jimmy practises football. His spelling is never corrected in case he is discouraged, so he is trapped. In the football team Jimmy is expected to work at his weaknesses. To do well at football, he knows he has to train, practice, recognise his weaknesses and do something about them. He gets sympathetic responses to his weakness in football, but he gets only apathetic responses to his weaknesses in spelling. I would like the world to revert to times when black was black and white was white, a world where we could laugh without upsetting somebody and a world where women took their married name from their husband. Political correctness - brought about by inadequate women wearing bovver boots - forget it! We can only wish and hope - for all our future.

Obviously, Anon.

Dear Anon,

I welcome your vote of confidence and have no intentions of altering my ways. I believe in calling a spade a shovel - whoever I upset.

The Chairman.

The LSC recently surveyed some of sports top thinkers as to their prospective opinion of what football will be like in the future. Listed below are their beliefs:

Steve Coppell

"Modern players are very athletic but there's a limit to the amount of punishment a body can take. I'd say that in ten years time, footballers' bodies win have been dispensed with altogether, in favour of superbrains. The brains will be linked together by computer and the ball will be metaphorical. To score 'goals', the two teams will have to outwit each other by setting difficult questions about subjects no-one likes like economics and those maths questions where Peter has two oranges and Barry has three bananas and they want to swap them, sort of, so anyway, managers of the future will have to have degrees in order to be able to operate the complicated machinery, so that's got to be good news for me and Brian McCIair, I think. Oh! and Ossie Ardiles."

Joao Havelange

"The world is more dangerous than it has ever been before, so to protect the game's future, FIFA will be going underground Thousands of stadia will be constructed beneath the earth’s surface connected by secret tunnels and protected by highly disciplined private armies in blue uniforms, shiny orange helmets and well polished boots. They'll have little cars which travel through these tunnels on a monorail, a bit like that story in the Rupert annuals - I used to love them - where the little bear and Bill Badger are kidnapped by the Pixie King. I'm told that an international company, Big Joao's Drilling Corp, have already submitted a detailed bid for the construction contract but we will give serious consideration to all other bids received before the deadline which I gather was last week."

The Chairman

I don't believe in crystal balls. I think they would probably smash if you kicked them on the half-volley.

Ray Wilkins

"Enzo Bearzot always used to say to me 'You are what you wear, Raymond'- I'm translating, obviously - and I'd like to think that philosophy will be an integral part of our football in ten years time. It's no surprise that we're not making any headway in international competitions when young players get away with making TV appearances in stuctureless leisurewear, loose-fitting sweatshirts and baggy sports slacks influenced by the rave fashions of the last five years. I hope that by 2005 there'll be a decent network of designer menswear shops in every high street, selling top quality, formal garments at affordable prices. Lovely."

Don Howe

"What with breakthroughs being made all the time in electric stuff like batteries and computers - have you seen those cute vacuum cleaners in Indian restaurants, for example? - I reckon football will be dominated by robots in 2005. They'll be chunky, slow moving little steel machines which never stop clattering about the field for the whole 90 minutes. Of course, they won't have so far to run because football pitches will be a different shape. The same width but only about 30 yards long. Prolonged, infuriating, automated, iron-clad, midfield dogfights. Wonderful."

Sir John Hall

"Football in a decade will be a much more sophisticated manifestation of the free market revolution. The Premier League will have been reduced to two clubs, Sir John Hall of Fame United and Alan Sugar Baby Loves. Every other team in the country will be in the Geezer Non-league Oik Poverty Combination and they'll all have to play on Hackney Marshes because I'll have turned their stadiums into shopping centres. Obviously we'll have all the good players. Everyone who joins us will have a tiny electrode implanted in their brain so that if they decide to leave a small nuclear bomb goes off at the base of their skull and they'll never play again. You don’t need an Oxbridge degree to understand that this makes simple common sense."

We have had several thousand requests (from one member) for a comparison between the records of Oldham Athletic and Progressive Classics over the histories of the two clubs. Here we go:

The Latics (1907-1996):P 3356 W 1243 D 848 L 1265 F 4890 A 4966 
Progressive Classics (1990-1996): P 271 W 192 D 31 L 48 F 773 A 380

Some comparisons:
Average wins	           Oldham 37%	Classics 71%
Average draws	           Oldham 25%	Classics 11%
Average losses	           Oldham 38%	Classics 18%
Average goals/game for     Oldham 1.46	Classics 2.85
Average goals/game against Oldham 1.48  Classics 1.4

Did you know?

Oldham created a club record in 1973-74 by winning 25 league matches as they gained promotion form Division Three. They equalled this when winning the Second Division Championship in 1991.

Harry Horrocks scored Athletic's third goal against Cardiff City at Boundary Park on May 5th. 1923. It was 68 Years before another goal was scored by the Latics in the First Division. Earl Barrett had the honour on August 17th. at Anfield against Liverpool. The first (First Division) goal at Boundary Park in 68 years was scored by Ian Marshall against Chelsea on 21st. August 1991 in a 3-0 win.