I TOLD THEM OLDHAM!

My local club, UniBond Division 1 side, Stocksbridge Park Steels had their moment in the national headlines when they beat Oldham Town 17-1 in an FA Cup Preliminary Round tie in 2002. The Sheffield club's Paul Jackson scored 10 goals and equalled the FA Cup record set by Chris Marron with South Shields in 1947. Not good news for Oldham Town, but any publicity is good publicity!

Ted McDougall's nine goals for AFC Bournemouth against Margate in 1971 remains the record in the FA Cup proper, whereas Jackson's ten is the equal record for the qualifying rounds. The Steels' record defeat was a 7–2 loss to Witton Albion in the 2001–02 season.

Oldham Borough F.C. was an English club based in Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. The club was founded in 1964 as Oldham Dew F.C. by George Dew, a local building contractor, as a work's football team. For the first two seasons, the club played amateur football with their home ground being at a local sports club, after which the club moved to Nordens Road, Chadderton since the mid 1960s.

After two seasons in amateur play, the club moved to Saturday football in the South East Lancashire League. The club gradually expanded and sought a higher level of competition, eventually moving into the Lancashire Combination League in 1981. In 1982 the Lancashire Combination merged with the Cheshire County League to form the North West Counties Football League, of which Dew were founder members in Division Three. In 1985 the club changed its name from Oldham Dew to Oldham Town and again in October 2009 to Oldham Borough.

At the end of that season they gained promotion to Division Two, before the resignation of manager Ken Hughes, as he became chairman of the club.  Following Hughes's resignation, the club failed to win many honours, as they would only win the Petit Cup and the Isle of Man Cup until 1991–92. In 1991, the club started youth squads at Under-14 and Under-15 levels of competition – both of which gained quick success.

They remained in Division One of the North West Counties League, resigning at the end of the 2014–15 season. They played their home games at Seel Park, home of Mossley, (remember my recent Blog on my visit to Mossley?) in the 2014–15 season. 

In 2014, the club, who had spent the previous two seasons playing at the Atherton Collieries AFC ground, 18 miles outside Oldham, after leaving the Whitebank Stadium, applied to Oldham Council to ground share at the Council owned Broadway ground with Chadderton F.C., however the application was rejected after objections from local councillors and the host club.