Welcome
to today's issue of
BOUNDARY
BULLET-zine
The
Daily On-line e-zine for 252
Oldham Athletic Supporters
Worldwide
Today's
Edition for
29th June 2000
Today's
Headlines
Oldham
Evening Chronicle
Contract
rebels in new Latics talks
CONTRACT
rebels Mark Allott and Scott McNiven are to have new talks tomorrow with
Athletic about their uncertain futures. The
pair, who have rejected new deals, are due to meet chief executive Alan
Hardy to discuss the impasse. The players' current deals expire tomorrow
at midnight, enabling them to move on. But
as they are under the age of 24 — both are 22 — Athletic will be entitled
to compensation unless they move abroad. In that case, Athletic would lose
out altogether as they did when Chris Makin moved to Marseille some years
ago. However at the moment it appears
the pair will be going nowhere as Athletic say they haven't had any bids
for striker Allott or defender McNiven.
The
most likely scenario is that the pair will re-sign for Athletic on week-to-week
contracts, which is hardly an ideal situation for manager Andy Ritchie
as he prepares for the start of the 2000/01 campaign. Ritchie
will find it hard to plan ahead not knowing whether Allott, last season's
11-goal joint leading scorer, or former Scotland under-21 international
McNiven will be remaining at the club. The
fear is that the pair leave shortly before or after the start of the season
when possible targets as replacements have themselves got fixed up. Athletic
under-15s are off to Northern Ireland on Tuesday to play in the Foyle Cup.
They will be based in Londonderry and have group games against Derry and
District, the Eire national team and North East Counties Schools.
Teamtalk
Oldham
Latics
wait on Graham
Oldham
are waiting for a response from Richard Graham to the ultimatum they set
him to sign a new contract on Wednesday. The 25 year-old has been stalling
over a new contract and the club finally lost patience with the player,
giving him 48 hours to sign, as they are anxious to end the stalemate.
The versatile Graham, who can play in defence or midfield has been holding
out in the hope of getting a better deal, but the Latics insist they will
not be upping their offer anymore.
Graham's current
contract at Boundary Park, making him one of the club's highest earners,
expires on Friday and after that he will be put on a months notice and
will continue to be paid until the end of July. If the player refuses to
accept Andy Ritchie's ultimatum, the club will withdraw their offer. That
will leave him as a free agent and then he will have to look for a new
club. The father-of-two will be mindful however, that while the saga has
dragged on, not one club has shown any interest in taking him on. The best
he can hope for is a wealthy club taking a risk on him, despite his injury
problems during the past two seasons, or he can sign a one-year deal and
hope to alert possible buyers if and when he gets back to his best.
Fall-back
plan announced
Plans
for a fall-back scheme, if the proposed redevelopment of Boundary Park
does not go-ahead have been approved by planning councillors. The council
have agreed that 300 houses can be built if the stadium is not developed
and it now means that outline plans to turn the proposed site into a residential
area, should the proposed stadium fall through, are now in the pipeline.
However, fans should not be unduly worried as the go-ahead for the redevelopment
has already been received and the scheme is ready to begin, making the
housing scheme merely a paper exercise.
Fixture
change
The Latics'
game at Colchester United, due to be played on Bank Holiday Monday, August
28 has been put back 24 hours to Tuesday, August 29. The game has been
switched as it was felt it would bring in a bigger attendance. The inconvenience
to Latics fans was taken into consideration but Colchester felt that they
could not refuse the request for the fixture to be changed.
Latics
await confirmation
Football
League clubs are still waiting to know when they are likely to receive
any payments from the recently agreed broadcasting deals. Second Division
clubs are likely to receive 150,000 pounds from the Internet deal agreed
with NTL but it is likely to be September before this is paid out to clubs.
Likewise, any up front payment from the new TV deal will not be paid straight
away as the new deal does not come into effect until next summer.
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
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F.C. nor necessarily the views of the Editor.This
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