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Cup games against Oldham are rare events, only once have we met in the FA Cup, that was in 1974 and five seasons later we played them in the Anglo Scottish Cup Final. On both occasions we recorded 4-1 wins at Boundary Park.
Oldham are playing their football in League One, just one division below us, but they could so easily have been in the same league as us this season. Last February they led their league, but a disappointing turn of form meant almost relegation form in the last third of the season and they just made the last play off place.
Up against Blackpool in that play off semi-final they lost both legs and so remain in League One. This will be their eleventh season there since suffering relegation in 1997 when they went down with Grimsby and Southend.
Manager John Sheridan, who took over from Ronnie Moore in summer 2006, set about changing his squad and first some of the players had to go. Amongst those to leave the club were Gareth Owen, Will Haining, Ritchie, Wellings, Craig Rocastle and Chris Porter.
Porter's departure infuriated everyone at Boundary Park. They knew he was going to leave but consoled themselves in the fact that they would receive a fee for him even though he was out of contract because he was only aged 23. They never bargained on him leaving the country but when he signed for Motherwell it left Oldham without a penny.
Amongst the new signings are experienced goalkeeper Mark Crossley, striker Mark Allott who started his career at Boundary Park before spending the last five years at Chesterfield and Craig Davies who was at Wolves on loan last season but has been signed from Italian Serie B club Hellas Verona.
They've also brought one more player in today, former West Brom and Coventry striker Lee Hughes who has just been released from prison after serving three years of a six year sentence. This is not the place for discussing the rights or wrongs of this signing, and Hughes will not play today.
There are also three loan signings and they include Neil Kilkenny from Birmingham who spent much of last season with Oldham. Also Ryan Bertrand has arrived from Chelsea as part of an agreement the two clubs made when Danny Philliskirk (son of former Claret Tony) moved to Stamford Bridge in the summer. The full list of signings is:
John Thompson from Nottingham Forest
Craig Davies from Hellas Verona
Jean-Paul Kalala from Yeovil
Mark Allott from Chesterfield
Lee Hughes formerly with West Brom
Neil Kilkenny from Birmingham (loan)
Stuart Giddings from Coventry (loan)
Ryan Bertrand from Chelsea (loan)
It's been something of a so, so start to the new season for Oldham. They won the first two games, including a win in the Carling Cup against Mansfield, but have since suffered successive 1-0 defeats.
Tonight will be the first time the two sides have met in any competition since the 1999/2000 season. We won both games that season. The home game was the first Turf Moor staged in this Millennium and resulted in a 3-0 win for the Clarets with goals from Andy Cooke and Andy Payton(2).
There are three players in the Oldham squad who have spent time at Turf Moor. There's youngster Neal Trotman, the perennially injured Neil Wood and the player who was brought in to replace Ade Akinbiyi in January 2006, former England international Michael Ricketts.
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It really has been a strange career for Ricketts who started in his native West Midlands with Walsall. He did OK for them but it was still something of a shock when Sam Allardyce paid £400,000 to take him to Bolton. But he scored goals for fun, won an international cap and went to Middlesbrough for no less than £3.5 million.
It didn't work for him at Middlesbrough, nor at Leeds. He joined Stoke on loan as a replacement for Akinbiyi, had a short time with Cardiff and then came to Burnley. At the beginning of last season he was the big summer transfer at Southend but that lasted no time at all, he had his contract cancelled for being overweight.
Eventually he landed at Preston but again he failed to deliver and manager Paul Simpson released him at the end of the season. That led to his latest move to Oldham where he has been given a three year contract. He got off the mark on his debut, netting from the penalty spot after just three minutes in a 2-1 win over Swansea.
Now 28, that penalty was just his twelfth league goal since he left Bolton, and that was in January 2003. This is make or break time for him, but that's been said a number of times before.
Loan player Neil Kilkenny is ruled out of tonight's clash with a thigh injury and a similar injury is expected to keep Mark Allott on the sidelines. Kilkenny played the full ninety minutes on Saturday but he isn't expected to play again for the next three weeks. Allott didn't feature Saturday and is considered very doubtful for tonight's game.
Gary McDonald is expected to come in for Kilkenny and that is the only change envisaged from the side that lost to Bristol Rovers and the only debate is expected to be who will replace McDonald on the bench, a bench that is expected to include former Burnley youth team captain Neal Trotman.
They are also without Stuart Giddings and manager Sheridan has confirmed that Lee Hughes will not feature, he says it is far too soon for him to be involved.
Oldham's expected side is: Mark Crossley, Neil Eardley, John Thompson, Sean Gregan, Ryan Bertrand, Andy Liddell, Jean-Paul Kalala, Gary McDonald, Chris Taylor, Michael Ricketts, Craig Davies. Subs: Les Pogliacomi, Neal Trotman, Deane Smalley, Matthew Wolfenden, Josh Bell.
I'm certain Steve Cotterill would have once again given some of the players missing out on league action a game tonight, as he did in the last round at Grimsby. But circumstances have changed and he's admitted himself he now has a dilemma following the postponement of the game on Saturday.
He could go ahead as he'd planned, and again he could play the side he expected to field on Saturday. Either way he'll have tomorrow's reserve team game in mind and will ensure as many as possible of his players feature in one game or the other.
We will be without Kyle Lafferty tonight through suspension and I don't think Steven Caldwell will return in this game. Goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly and Besart Berisha are also struggling and neither of them are likely to be risked.
Should they all miss out then the squad virtually picks itself. We've 21 full time professionals now and with Jay Rodriguez expected to be in the reserve team, and with the potential of four unavailable then it will mean the rest of them will be in the squad.
The team could be: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Clarke Carlisle, David Unsworth, Stephen Jordan, Wade Elliott, Joey Gudjonsson, Chris McCann, Jon Harley, Robbie Blake, Andy Gray. Subs: James O'Connor, John Spicer, Alan Mahon, Steve Jones, Ade Akinbiyi.
Should Burnley win tonight then don't be surprised to see us paired with Aston Villa in the next round. The only previous occasion we have been drawn against Oldham in one of the two major cup competitions was 34 seasons ago. On that occasion we travelled to Boundary Park after beating Grimsby Town in the previous round. Now who was it we beat a couple of weeks ago?
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Whatever plans Burnley had for this tough game at Oldham, they were all thrown into turmoil by Frizzell who incredibly on the eve of the game chose to publicly belittle Leighton James. Why is anyone's guess but at that time Taffy was as good as any left winger in the country and for some considerable distance beyond. A mere 20-year-old at the time but playing football as good as at any time he ever managed in his career.
Oldham had a lumbering right back by the name of Ian Wood. In 1980 he would sign for us and wouldn't hold his place in the side for very long. Apparently, on this January day in 1974, James wouldn't get a kick against Wood who would be just too good for him.
Burnley boss Jimmy Adamson took all the press cuttings of Frizzell's rantings and told Taffy to go out and play and by five minutes past three the game was over as a contest. Three times we gave him the ball, three times he left the hapless Wood for dead, and three times we headed his crosses into the net.
For a reason only the referee will ever know, he disallowed one of them from Ray Hankin, but it hardly mattered. Wood was a beaten man, Taffy had a smile on his face as wide as Boundary Park and Burnley fans, for some strange reason allocated tickets in both ends of the ground, were celebrating.
Martin Dobson got one of the early goals, Paul Fletcher got the other (those that counted). Dobson scored again and of course James just had to get a goal for himself. Frizzell spent twelve years as Oldham manager; I don't think he ever got anything quite so badly wrong as he did for this game.
Burnley lined up: Alan Stevenson, Peter Noble, Colin Waldron, Jim Thomson, Keith Newton, Geoff Nulty, Martin Dobson, Doug Collins, Paul Fletcher, Ray Hankin, Leighton James.
Previous 20 Seasons | |||||
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
1994/95 | 1 | a | 0-3 | 11,310 | . |
| . | . | h | 2-1 | 11,620 | Nogan Vinnicombe |
1997/98 | 2 | h | 0-0 | 11,189 | . |
. | . | a | 3-3 | 9,781 | Cooke Weller Little |
1998/99 | 2 | h | 1-0 | 9,539 | Cooke |
| . | . | a | 1-1 | 8,542 | Payton |
1999/2000 | 2 | a | 1-0 | 8,543 | Payton |
. | . | h | 3-0 | 12,391 | Cooke Payton(2) |