Postponed: Bromley vs Oldham Athletic

Yes, Oldham fans have had their travel plans obliterated (I hope the travel companies are kind to them), but it’s better to know early rather than have the fixture called off when you’re en route to London.

It would have been a tough one for the club to swallow financially. Tickets had been selling well and the bars would have been buzzing. Instead, there’s every likelihood the clubs will rearrange for a Tuesday night, hitting the away attendance and reducing the take at the bar. The club still made the right decision in calling it off, but let’s not forget it comes at a cost.

On the flip side, after a heavy run of festive games, perhaps the rest will come as a late Christmas present. I wrote an article a few weeks ago about Bromley taking a pause during the FA Cup fixtures, and I believe the same might apply here. The FA Cup break came at a great time for Bromley, and this one may well do too

.Anyway, I’m reluctant to let my preview article go to waste. So if you’ll indulge a little make-believe and pretend the game is still going ahead, here’s the article.

This is another fixture where fans will glance at the league table and make quiet assumptions. But is the table telling the truth, or is it turning out another whopper?

Oldham’s start to the season left a lot to be desired, which is why they’re in 15th place, but the conversation has changed at Boundary Park because the Latics have started picking up points. They arrive at Hayes Lane having not lost in five, putting nine points on the board in the process. Make no mistake, this is a tricky time to play them.

I’m going to zero in on their recent fixtures with the former league leaders Walsall, a team they played twice in December. That match-up had some relevance to Bromley’s title chase, but it also said a lot about Oldham’s spirit of late. 

At the start of December, the Latics lost a tight encounter 1-0 at home, shooting themselves in the foot with a defensive error. But when they travelled to Walsall on Monday 29th, they clinched a 2-1 win with a last-kick-of-the-game winner. Limbs o’clock in the away end. 

Between losing to the former league leaders and beating them, Oldham played three games against teams in their neck of the table: Crawley (D 2-2), Tranmere (W 3-1), and Grimsby (D 0-0). Those results might not have set the league on fire, but they didn’t lose, which gave them the foothold they needed to regain their belief. Thus the last-gasp win over Walsall.

While Bromley scored a 2-1 win against Newport on New Year’s Day, the Latics were entertaining play-off-chasing Chesterfield and earning themselves a 1-1 draw. However, and it’s a big HOWEVER, Oldham squandered some absolute sitters in that game, including missing a penalty and two goal-line tap-ins. They should have won comfortably.

One of those tap-in disasters belonged to Joe Quigley, whose time at Bromley in the 18/19 season is something of a punchline. Even so, Joe has gone on to earn a respectable non-league and Football League career, so you have to hand it to him. Usually on a plate. 

(He’ll score against us now, won’t he? Sorry, everyone.)

With 24 goals in 24 games this season, Oldham's goal-per-game ratio writes itself. Bromley’s record is almost double, with 42 goals in the same period. Twelve of Bromley’s goals belong to the league’s second-top scorer Michael Cheek, who seems likely to miss this encounter with the injury that forced his half-time substitution on Thursday.

We don’t know what the injury is or how long it will set him back, but it might not be the worst time for the frontman to have a rest. Nicke Kabamba looks sharp and seems more than capable of picking up the slack, and Cheek has put a lot of minutes in his legs in the first half of the season. Naturally, Bromley won’t want him to miss too much football, but his absence doesn’t feel like a crisis. 

Assuming Cheek misses this one and Kabamba deputises, the big question is who will step up to the bench: Jemiah Umolu or Marcus Dinanga? Andy Woodman’s choice may be very telling in terms of each player’s future at the club. My shout is Umolu for the bench.

Like Bromley, Oldham’s starting XI leans in favour of experience, and interestingly, the average age of both squads is 27 years old, with a raft of key players over 30. 

Experience aside, the Latics’ leading scorer is 22-year-old Michael Mellon, on loan from Premier League Burnley. 

The young striker has netted 7 league goals this season, although that number was boosted by a hat-trick in their game against Tranmere last month, a fixture close to the hearts of the Mellon family. Michael’s father is Tranmere Rovers legend Micky Mellon, who amassed 115 appearances for the Wirral side and managed them twice, taking the reins between 2016 and 2020, then from 2021 to 2023.

When Micky Mellon and Tranmere acrimoniously parted ways in 2023, Oldham moved quickly to snap him up and he’s been managing the Latics ever since, guiding them to promotion through the play-offs last season with a dramatic 3-2 extra-time win over Southend. 

Ahead of the club’s first season back in League Two since 21/22, Micky added his son to the squad. Nepotism or not, there’s a bit of old-school football romance when managers sign their son, isn’t there? 

However, and it’s another huge HOWEVER, Michael Mellon suffered what may well be a season-ending hamstring tear in Oldham’s Boxing Day fixture, so he won’t feature against Bromley. 

Micky Mellon favours either a 3-5-2 or 4-4-2 for his side, so it will be interesting to see which he opts for. The two-striker set-up means Joe Quigley will likely start alongside either Kane Drummond or Kian Harratt. 

Given Cheek’s injury, I don’t see Bromley altering their lone striker approach, so I expect we won’t see a change in formation. The make-up of Andy Woodman’s starting XI is another matter. 

In his post-match interview with Matt Hall on Thursday, the manager spoke about rotation being essential in this fixture. Quite to what extent he meant is unclear. Games so far over the festive period have usually only seen a single change. Will this game be an outlier?   

To my mind, the most sensible swaps are Samuel for Ifill, Thompson for Krauhaus, and Hondermarck for Arthurs. None of those players have done anything wrong, they’re just suitable like-for-like(ish) changes. 

The big question is whether Andy gives Mitch ‘The Postman’ Pinnock a rest. Keeping him fit feels like the key to Bromley’s season, so managing minutes makes sense. Brooklyn Ilunga has impressed during his energy-filled cameos. Is this the time to reward him?

And then there’s Ashley Charles. Would Bromley play the same tune if you swiped the metronome from their piano?

We’ll find out at 2 PM tomorrow.

Except we won’t, because as I typed the full stop at the end of the previous sentence, the message came through that the game had been postponed. Sod’s law. 

So now you have a Sunday free to do with what you will. I’ll be taking down the Christmas decorations. Oh what fun.