Welcome to today's issue of 
BOUNDARY BULLET-zine
 
The Daily On-line e-zine for 167 Oldham Athletic Supporters Worldwide
 
Today's Edition for
 
    14th April 2000     
 
 
Today's Headlines
 
 Teamtalk Oldham 
Shaun Ok

 The scan on Shaun Garnett's knee injury has shown there's no serious damage but he's struggling to be fit for the Chesterfield game. The Latics take on the Spireites this Tuesday at Boundary Park and the big defender who took a nasty knock on his knee against Bournemouth is still receiving treatment for his problem.
It is expected that he will sit out for a couple of weeks and possibly even fail to play another senior game this season, but it is still seen as good news that there is no serious ligament damage.

Leeds decision wait


 The Latics face an anxious wait to hear if their ground-breaking proposal to link up with Leeds will be given the green light. The plans which have been surrounded by controversy since they were revealed last week, were discussed by the Football League on Thursday, but no firm decision has yet been made.
Football League chairman Peter Middleton is also expected to discuss the matter further with Latics chairman David Brieley at great length. After the board meeting on Thursday there will be further meetings held between the Football League and the Premiership board. A poll has been conducted by the fans and it has shown that many of the Latics faithful are in favour of the deal, because even though Leeds under the agreement get first pick of talented youngsters, the Latics will still see plenty of benefits. Andy Ritchie will hold talks with Leeds counterpart David O'Leary in the summer in order to plan out the exact nature of the deal and it is thought the agreement will mean the Latics get Leeds players on loan, perhaps even for a full season.

Two more out


 Both John Sheridan and Paul Rickers are the latest casualties of the season and will not figure again this term. The pair join top scorer Mark Allott and winger Neil Adams on the sidelines. Sheridan, the veteran former Republic of Ireland midfielder, has damaged ankle ligaments and is hobbling around on crutches. Whilst the versatile Rickers goes into hospital on Monday for an operation on his groin. The 24 year old has been playing through the pain barrier and it has been decided that he should have the surgery now to give him as much time as possible to recover for next season.
 BBC Online  
Appearances Goals
Name Pos* Signed Lge All Lge All
Adams, Neil F  01-Aug-99  29  34  2  3 
Allott, Mark F  14-Oct-95  70+30  80+37  20  22 
Boshell, Daniel M    1+2  1+2     
Dudley, Craig F  25-Mar-99  14+7  16+8  5  6 
Dunning, Richard D  23-Mar-00         
Duxbury, Lee F  07-Mar-97  128+2  147+2  15  17 
El Banna, Wassim   23-Mar-00         
Futcher, Benjamin     1+4  1+5     
Garnett, Shaun D  19-Sep-96  118+4  134+4  8  8 
Graham, Richard M  16-Jul-93  139+10  166+10  14  15 
Holt, Andy D  23-Jul-96  87+12  99+13  8  8 
Hotte, Mark D  01-Jul-97  29+3  32+3     
Innes, Mark D  10-Oct-95  23+12  27+12  1  1 
Jones, Paul D  16-Nov-99  11  11+1  1  1 
Kelly, Gary GK  27-Aug-96  154  176     
McNiven, Scott F  25-Oct-95  124+13  151+15  3  4 
Miskelly, David GK  01-Jul-97  1  2     
Mohan, John   01-Aug-99         
Rickers, Paul M  16-Jul-93  191+8  216+10  16  16 
Ritchie, Andy F  21-Feb-97  14+12  16+14  2  3 
Salt, Phil M  01-Jul-97  5+8  9+9    1 
Sheridan, John M  20-Oct-98  64+1  73+2  3  4 
Sugden, Ryan M  25-Nov-98  2+11  3+12     
Tait, Jordan D  23-Aug-99  0+1  0+2     
Thom, Stuart D  02-Nov-98  23+6  26+6  3  3 
Tipton, Matthew F  01-Jul-97  24+32  27+38  3  3 
Walsh, Danny F  07-Jul-98  0+2  0+2     
Whitehall, Steve F  10-Jul-98  52+18  60+21  12  14 

* GK=Goal Keeper, D=Defender, M=Midfielder, F=Forward
+Denotes appearances made as a substitute

 

 Football Guardian Wilf Mannion

Golden boy of Middlesbrough and England from an age when footballers banked only goals
 

Wilf Mannion, who has died aged 81, was a marvellous, instinctive natural footballer. A complete inside-forward, a fine ball player, an exceptional passer of the ball, he could cut through defences to score with a sudden, disconcerting change of pace. The golden boy of Middlesbrough in the immediate post-war years, international football held no terrors for him. He was capped 26 times for England and scored 110 goals in 368 league and cup games for the Boro.

Small, blond, a mere 5ft 5in tall, but sturdy and weighing 11 stone, Mannion was born at South Bank, in Yorkshire, joined South Bank St Peter's, then the Middlesbrough nursery, and turned professional at 17. He made his league debut with Middlesbrough in the first division in 1937, before his 18th birthday.

The following season saw him make 22 appearances, scoring four times, but in the seasons immediately before the second world war, he had already become a major force. In the 1938-39 season, he made 38 appearances, scoring 14 goals. Into the army he then went, the Green Howards, and participated in the retreat from Dunkirk, but before he was posted to the Middle East he would make four wartime appearances for England, at inside-right. He also played games for Tottenham and Bournemouth.

As a schoolboy, I was lucky enough to see one of Mannion's England appearances at Wembley - against Scotland, in January 1942 - and I still retain the image of him scampering over the snow, while a man behind me shouted, "Come on, Mannion, boy!" England won that game 3-0. Mannion's partner on the right flank was Stanley Matthews, and the centre-forward was the prolific Tommy Lawton, who scored twice. Both of them stayed in England throughout the war, years in which Mannion would certainly have consolidated his fame and played much more for his country.

In fairness, it took no time at all to regain his place in England's team once he was demobilised. Indeed, he played in their first dozen full, post-war internationals. One of his finest displays was in Glasgow, in May 1947, when he scored twice in Great Britain's 6-1 win against the Rest of Europe.

When Mannion had left England, the inside-right position had gone to Raich Carter, who proved an ideal partner for Matthews. When Carter eventually lost his place, it was to Matthews's partner at Blackpool, Stanley Mortensen. So Mannion settled into a powerful England attack at inside-left, where he duly became an ideal partner for another famous England winger, Tom Finney.

The first time Matthews was picked for England on the right, with Finney on the left, was in May 1947, in Lisbon, against Portugal. Mannion was Finney's elegant partner. England won 10-0. A year later, in Turin, the same forward line routed Italy 4-0, with Finney, well abetted by Mannion, scoring the last two goals.

Mannion's first wartime game for England had been played not far from home, on the ground of Newcastle United, when England beat Scotland, 2-1. Scotland, indeed, would figure largely in Mannion's international career. Playing against them, at Wembley once more, in April 1951, he fractured a cheekbone and had to leave the field. There were no substitutes then. Finney moved into Mannion's position, and had a fine game, but England's 10 men lost 3-2.

Mannion played in only one World Cup; England's ill-fated 1950 excursion to Brazil, where, in the immense, newly-built Maracana stadium, he scored one of England's goals in their 2-0 win over Chile. Alas, neither he nor any other English player, could score in the next game, when they were sensationally beaten 1-0 by the scratch United States team in Belo Horizonte, still one of the strangest international results of all time.

Of Mannion, occasionally his partner, so often his England team mate, Stanley Matthews once said: "Wilf could turn on a sixpence and liked to play the short game. He had an instinctive football intellect. He was a beautiful player and a delight to the eye. On his day, there were few to touch him. So nice and modest."

But Mannion was a player in an era of pitifully low maximum wages for footballers - £10 a week in his case. It was a situation against which he rebelled, and at the end of the 1947-48 season he demanded a move to Oldham, taking a job selling chicken coops in the town while awaiting a concession from Middlesbrough. None came and, in the 1948-49 season, he was out of football for several months, in bitter conflict with his club. He was fined by the Football League, into the bargain, when he refused to give them details of illegal payments of which he had spoken.

Curiously enough, he got a mere one goal in 35 games the following season, and wouldn't reach double figures again till 1950-51. His most prolific league season came in 1952-53, with 19 goals in 41 games. But the following year saw Boro relegated, Mannion getting just nine goals in 37 games.

They promptly let him go to Hull City, where in his only season he scored just once in 16 games. Between 1954 and 1962, he played non-league football for Poole Town, King's Lynn, Havershill Rovers and Earlstown. There was also an unhappy, unsuccessful spell as manager of the then non-league Cambridge United - but then Mannion was never cut out for management. His last appearance for England was against France in 1951; a 2-2 draw.

Paid as the Ravanellis and Juninhos would eventually be by Middlesbrough, Mannion would not, after his retirement, have been forced to work on a building site, and afterwards slide into penury. But in the early 1980s, he was given a testimonial by his old club.

His wife, Bernadette, predeceased him. He is survived by two daughters and a son.

 Contributions and letters should be sent to Gary Davies by e-mail at [email protected].Boundary Bullet-zine Archive can be found at http://www.geocities.com/laticsgary.geo.The views expressed on this e-zine are not the views of Oldham Athletic F.C. nor necessarily the views of the Editor.This e-zine is a unofficial publication NOT sanctioned by Oldham Athletic Football Club.The editor will not publish any letters containing bad language.This e-zine is written using Microsoft Outlook Express and is best viewed with the HTML (rich) text option enabled.
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