Thread by @jjreade

All day this song has been in my head: "Boys in Blue", recorded for Oldham Athletic's League Cup Final appearance in 1990.

From August, at about 2:50pm every other Saturday it will be inflicted upon the National League.

A 🧵 on #oafc's sorry plight.

Yesterday #oafc fell out of the Football League, having been, in 1992, 1993 and 1994, in the Premier League.

They lost their 25th match of a lamentable campaign in almost every respect. I've been to 13 of those matches (W2 D3 L8).

Starting with the first match of the season...

After that, an abject performance at Bristol Rovers, a humbling at Premier League Brentford, and the Barrow match, interrupted by one of the many pitch invasions early in the season.

Things were clearly not right. I was on watch 4, L4. Overall W2 D3 L7.

In October and November I saw the only two wins in person I witnessed all season: 3-0 over Stevenage, 3-2 over Port Vale. Also a 1-2 FA Cup 1st Round Replay home defeat, 1-2 to Ipswich.

December and Boxing Day saw a low point - a 1-3 home reverse to Scunthorpe, leaving us 92nd out of 92. 16 points from 22 matches.

Further non-performances before on January 23, John Sheridan was re-appointed. If anyone could turn things around, he could. The Rochdale match on Jan 29 saw a huge crowd turn out, but a 0-0 draw.

A seven match unbeaten spell followed, and I got to a remarkable 3-3 draw at Newport with 50 attempts on goal, plus a battling 2-2 draw at Crawley with colleagues.

The legend of Mike Fondop that could have been...

#oafc

After that game two last-kick defeats to Carlisle and Swindon, the start of the end. I also got to the 0-2 home defeats to Exeter and then Northampton, the latter of which, as Barrow somehow thumped leaders Forest Green 4-0, really sealed our fate.

#oafc

Which leads to the second musical interlude.

Just as the teams run back out for the second half, for all my time as a Latics fan (back to 1989), they've done so to this extremely quirky piece of music: Mouldy Old Dough by Lieutenant Pigeon.

#oafc

As a sport economist by trade, I spend much of my time trying to contextualise things like miserable fates of football teams.

Something of that has gone into what I've wrote since 5pm yesterday when our fate was sealed.

jjreade.medium.com/relegation-con…

First, our owners made the choices that left us here. They chose to be on one of the lowest, if not the lowest, wage bill in the division.

Multiple papers by top sport economist Stefan Szymanski @sszy including the plot screenshotted below show that this is not a good idea.

The current owners have accelerated a decline that had been on-going since those Premier League days that have been oft-talked about lately.

From Premier League to National League in 28 (mainly) miserable years.

jjreade.medium.com/relegation-con…

It's hard to see where things go from here. Arguably the club looks most like Southend United @sundersays, who fell out of the EFL last season and have finished mid-table this season. Below is the trajectory of all EFL relegated clubs since 1997.

I count that 4 have made it back to the EFL first time, 3 in 2 years, 1 in 3 years, 3 in 4 years, 4 in 5 years and 3 in 6 years. In general, not a speedy process.

jjreade.medium.com/relegation-con…

#oafc

Finally, what role for a regulator, an independent one, for the @EFL and English football in general?

I think there is a case. The good owners (Accrington, Forest Green etc) will pass a fit owners test, but hopefully a well designed annual test will weed out the bad ones.

There will always be losers - that's the nature of football, and sport. Teams each season have to finish 91st and 92nd.

But if it could at least be better managed teams finishing there, rather than terribly managed ones, that would be better for all. Competitive balance.

@sszy as a mourning Scunthorpe fan regularly challenges me on why there is any need for intervention - the EFL's been around for centuries, why does it need change?

But there's a huge positive externality for good owners which means they are under-supplied.

Even while Oldham #oafc were sinking into oblivion, one man, pictured below, was making a huge difference. A positive one, with larger crowds, and a team fighting and scrapping.

That feelgood factor tells me that those clubs finishing 91st and 92nd can still be better managed...

...with all the attendant benefits that come along with that, if the bad management can be weeded out.

All that means is designing a proper fit and proper owner's test. That's another question entirely.

But to wrap up a long, long thread, #oafc face a highly uncertain future. The total mess with ownership needs to somehow be resolved. Fan groups are making progress with it - @PTB_OAFC @_OASF who deserve huge applause for their hard work.

I hope I can help play a role, and I hope many do, and I hope that community ownership can come to Oldham and Boundary Park.

I think that must be the future, and I only hope it arrives soon, and reasonably peacefully, as far as the club is concerned.

#oafc

END

Pretty much as I was finishing this thread, this appeared:

https://twitter.com/henrywinter/status/1518364649183453184

Strengthened owners and directors test.

#oafc

Here's the BBC reporting on it:

bbc.co.uk/sport/football…

"No direct timeline for implementing"

#oafc

Here's Debbie Abrahams, local MP, making the same point regarding timeline:

https://twitter.com/Debbie_abrahams/status/1518484997174403073

#oafc

In and around all the uncertainty regarding who the owner will be, and whether there'll be a sporting director, what the budget will be, the commitment that John Sheridan will stay in charge is good news.

Small crumbs of comfort.

https://twitter.com/OfficialOAFC/status/1518594482933014529?s=20&t=oTb8ct0FJ668yppxi3-oDA

Updated plot (though not inverted yet) including National League N/S and lower, all based on Soccerbase data.

Of 38 club cases:
- after 1 season 33 still in NL (4 up, 1 down)
- after 2 seasons 25 (7 up, 2 down)
- after 3 seasons 22 (8 up, 2 down, 2 gone)

#oafc

@sundersays @HectorPollitt @SuzanneNQNW Continuing...

- after 4 seasons 17 (10 up, 3 down)
- after 5 seasons 12 (13 up, 2 down)
- after 6 seasons 8 (14 up, 2 down)
- after 7 seasons 6, after 8 seasons 5, after 9 seasons 3.

The majority do go back up, attrition is that spells in last 10 years not full yet.

After 10 years, two teams below NL still: Halifax (2002) and Darlington (2010). York currently there but *only* after 5 years.

A fascinating, though grim, picture of divisional mobility. Keep thinking of @JaminSpeer whilst looking into this.