A Good Win At Oldham?
January 28th, 2010 by neilOn one of the many drunken nights over Christmas, I agreed to accompany a pal to an Oldham Athletic game at some point in the near future. By the following morning, I had forgotten about it but he had not. So it is that I will be getting up at 4:30am to catch a flight to Manchester to watch the original Latics (Oldham fans insist they had the nickname before Wigan) take on Brentford.
The experience could yet result in me taking a vow of abstinence. After booking my flight, my friend informed me of a previous trip when he brought an ‘Oldham virgin’ to a game. Upon their arrival in the town, they were stopped by a woman conducting a survey. The newcomer was asked if he had witnessed violence in Oldham. He explained that he had only just arrived in the town to which the woman replied ‘you will do’ and marked him down as a yes. Could be interesting…
There is some Irish interest with former under-21 international Kevin O’Connor on track to rack up 400 appearances for Brentford before the end of the season even though he is still just 26 years of age; former Cork City defender Alan Bennett also plays for The Bees; Dean Brill – who is qualified to play for Ireland but has never done so at any level – will be keeping goal for the home side; and, at the time of writing, Oldham are in negotiations with Huddersfield to keep Jim Goodwin on loan for a second month.
Ah yes, Jim Goodwin. The mere mention of his name never fails to make me laugh, although not on account of anything he has done. You may remember that Goodwin won a solitary Ireland cap in the 3-0 friendly win over Finland in August 2002. Actually, you probably don’t. I recall him for a different reason.
As the Irish edition of an English paper, we spend a good bit of our trying to generate Irish copy to replace material which might be relevant for England but not for Ireland. You can often get a helping hand from articles submitted from freelance journalists across the water which would never see the light of day in England but would be of interest over here.
On one occasion, a journalist filed a piece which mentioned that Jim Goodwin kept his medal for helping Ireland win the Under-16 European Championhips in 1998 in a drawer, occasionally taking it out to reflect on the glory achieved with the likes of John O’Shea and Andy Reid. It was my task to, how shall we say, liven up the copy. And so the intro was changed to Jim Goodwin has admitted how he likes nothing better than opening his drawers to admire his prized possession. Juvenile, yes, but highly amusing, for me at least. I’m not sure if he ever heard about it and, if he did, what he thought of it.
I was going to back him to score but given it’s unclear if he will play, I will instead back Bennett with €5 to score first at 40/1. I’m going to put another €10 on a draw at half-time and an away win at full-time at 5/1. Elsewhere, I like the look of the enhanced treble of Newcastle, West Brom and Cardiff to win. I’ll put €15 on that at 8/1 and €10 on a Dundee United/Hibernian double which would yield €31.50. Finally, I’m going to back Livingston at half-time and full-time against Queen’s Park with €10 on that at 4/5.
