Soundtrack to this post.
Two nil.
Even at half time it was nothing, and it had been a fair old scrap, both sides having a go and tempers going up a notch before the break. Then Calum Kavanagh scored on the hour, running onto a Norburn free-kick taken before anybody in a Vale shirt had finished arranging themselves, and again on 75, when Fondop got an overhead kick on the end of an Appiah-Forson cross and put the ball exactly where Kavanagh happened to be standing. Mat Hudson kept a clean sheet, which is how he spent most of last season. Five of the summer signings made their debuts. It was, by any measure available to me at half twelve on a Saturday in August, perfect.
Third. Above the line. In the automatic promotion zone.
I am aware of what I am doing here. Eight teams are on three points. We are third because we scored two and let none in, and by teatime next Saturday the table will have rearranged itself into something with less to say. There are forty five games left. September is derbies almost the whole way through.
But look at it. It is right there.
Here is the thing I keep turning over. England went to the World Cup this summer and finished third in the world, which is the best they have managed in sixty years, and it landed on the country like a dropped plate. Lost the semi-final to Argentina having been in front. Then beat France six four in the third place match, four up at half time, pegged back to within one by Mbappe and Dembele, a Saka hat-trick, Bellingham finishing it off in the ninety eighth minute. Ten goals. The most anyone has scored in a bronze final, ever. And I would guess a fair few people reading this had forgotten the game was even played.
Meanwhile Oldham beat Port Vale in the middle of August and I have taken a screenshot of a league table.
The feeling has almost nothing to do with the size of the achievement. It is all about what you were expecting. England were supposed to win it, so third felt like something being taken away. Oldham are supposed to be somewhere in the middle of the fourth tier, quietly, so one Saturday afternoon can put us in the promotion places and I get to sit with that for a whole week. Neither of those reactions is wrong. They are just two different arrangements of the same hope, and mine happens to be the one that pays out more often, in smaller amounts.
Four years ago we were out of the Football League altogether. I will take a Saturday like this and I will not be doing any of the sensible arithmetic about it until at least Friday.
Come on you Latics.
