Oldham

Ground: Boundary Park

Visits: 1

Date: 8th May 2016

Match: Oldham - Coventry 0-2 (League 1)

Attendance: 4 928

The last day of League 1 had a 12.30 kick-off time. From Manchester there are flights to Copenhagen at 18.30 and 19.30 on Sundays. That meant I could go to either Bury (vs Southend) or Oldham (vs Coventry) and the catch a flight back home the same day. Neither match was of any importance and in the end I decided to go to Boundary Park, the home of Oldham Athletic. My train from Oxford arrived shortly after 10pm on Saturday evening but I had booked a hotel very close to Manchester Piccadilly station and the walk from the station only took me two minutes or so. My alarm buzzed at 08.15 on Sunday morning and after enjoying a long breakfast I went to the Piccadilly tram station where I bought a return ticket for Westwood. The train station in Oldham is far from the ground but from the Westwood tram stop it was "only" a 20-minute walk to Boundary Park. I had to change trams at Victoria and around 10.50 I was outside the ground. In 2008 the old Boundary (North) Stand was demolished but it wasn´t until 2014 building works on the new stand started. In September 2015 the new stand was opened and the overall capacity of Boundary Park is nowadays 13 300. The new (North) stand has a capacity of 2 670 but it mostly the commercial use of the stand Oldham will benefit from. The weather this Sunday was really warm (for England!) with around 22 °C. Not wanting to sit in the sun I bought a ticket for the Rochdale Road End and with it being unreserved seating it was easy to find a good seat. Once inside the ground I have to say Boundary Park is a nice mix of old and new and the ground is well worth a visit.

With the game being of no importance I was not sure what to expect. Coventry brought around 800 fans, a very respectable figure, to Oldham but in the first half there was not much to cheer about, 0-0 at half-time. In the second half Coventry were by far the better team and in the 74th minute it was 0-1. Oldham still didn´t create many chances and in the 81st minute Coventry scored again to make it 0-2. A fully deserved victory a Coventry must be one of the favourites in League 1 next season. After the final whistle I went over to the main stand and took a few pictures of the Rochdale Road End. As I then made the walk back to Westwood someone suddenly asked me if I knew where the nearest tram stop was. That was Manchester City fan Jim who had come over from Northern Ireland for the Manchester C v Arsenal game. There is a tram stop next to the Etihad Stadium and once we were on the tram back to central Manchester there were plenty of City fans in the tram on their way to the game. I had left my bag at my hotel and after saying good bye to Jim I picked up my bag before getting a train to Manchester Airport. At 18.30 my flight then left Manchester and around 23.15 I was back home in Kristianstad. I have now been to 81 of the current 92 grounds and hopefully I will be on 85-86 after next season.

boundary park