From behind enemy lines.

Last updated : 30 November 2003 By Richard Brown with 'CJC'

CJC's thoughts on…

The referee meets his fan club.
…the Match in general


I try not to be pessimistic and always try to look at the glass half full but at times today I thought I was watching Sunday league. In terms of quality of football, both teams were poor and reflected their league positions. Notts County were probably a bit better than Oldham overall in the way that they chased the lost causes and generally wanted the three points more, which as an Oldham fan I don’t like saying as Dowie usually gets his players playing with fire in their bellies, which unfortunately we didn’t have today.


…the referee


Not fit to run a chip shop let alone a football game, poor on both parts, didn’t let the game flow at all, booked 2 players for diving which I had a good view of and both were ridiculous bookings as both players merely went down in the tackle. The penalty was a bit harsh but I’ve seen them given for a lot less. The sending off I will talk about later


Notts County

They were a bit better than we were but sorry if this offends any County fans, that isn’t saying much. It’s not hard to see why they occupy their current league position as there seems to be a general and they were playing a VERY patched up Oldham side, I think we would have seen a very different game if the Latics had some of their key players in the team such as David Eyres, Paul Murray and John Sheridan. However Notts had a few first team regulars missing and I don’t want to take credit away from them - they battled hard.


…the Goal


Haining could have arguably cleared the pass which created the goal and bit of a route one pass but was a good opportunist strike and quality finish.

…the Penalty Miss


Roca steps up...nevermind.
Again not to take credit away from Mildenhall for the good pen save but a striker who is a Jamaican international really shouldn’t be missing penalties. Was a poor penalty in general lacked any sort of power, all the keeper had to do was dive the right way to save it which he did, and saved it comfortably too (he even kept hold of it which further demonstrated the lack of power). Missed a penalty against Swindon and another one today, some work needs to be done on the training ground.


…Clive Platt’s sending off

From what I have seen, the ref sent him off because of something Platt said. I can understand Platt’s frustrations as there isn’t a word to describe how bad this ref was (and I am not over exaggerating) but he should have read the game better as this ref was dishing cards out for fun, Platt should have known a little better as there was no way he was going to get away with it with this ref in charge.


…the Final Score

After the first goal, nobody looked like scoring. Both teams were poor but Notts County just about deserved it, probably could have had one or two more with the chances they had before the first goal.


…the Game’s shining lights.


Mildenhall : saved the penalty.
Mildenhall had a steady game in goal comfortably saving a penalty from Johnson and Heffernan took his goal well. Ernie Cooksey deserved the man of the match award he got for the home team as he didn’t stop running for 90 minutes, and Michael Clegg played well when he came on, looked a lot more solid down the right than Dean Holden, who improved in the second half once they moved him to Left Back, probably the only positives as a Latics fan I could take from a generally poor quality game.