National League Thread

[yarddog73]

4 hours ago, spanishfly said:

Hi yarddog - The below extract from an article in inews (Dec 23) helps to answer the question regarding "fixation with academics" :-

 

Royle identified Ormskirk as the template for Oldham to follow. “It was a market town going to ruin until Edge Hill College turned into Edge Hill University. That university higher education economy has been a fantastic boost for Ormskirk. It’s thriving. Oldham doesn’t have that.

 

“Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has a much bigger vision that we are working on together with Oldham Council and our MPs, Angela Raynor, Jim McMahon and Debbie Abrahams. That is all about the economy. Education is the key to that, to increase standards of living and address the brain drain of young people leaving.

“We have not got a higher education economy here and we have a problem with young people not moving into higher education, which means you are stuck. We have some great institutions like the Sixth Form College, Oldham College and other schools, and we have Eton setting up a sixth form college in Oldham. They want to have a chat with the club to understand what our plans are.

 

“We have a plot of land here bigger than the Etihad complex, lots of green space that they wanted to build houses on. We don’t want to do that. We want to build something for the young people of Oldham. The vision is a sports town, with higher education around sport that will bring facilities to life during the week not just the 23 [match] days a year.

“That will involve football and rugby. We also have some of the best netball players in the UK coming from Oldham, which is not talked about enough. That’s another sport we have to try to build facilities for and an education pathway. It is the education economy that will underpin the non-match day activity.”

 

The club plans to use the new stand named after Darren’s father, Joe, to house educational facilities capable of hosting 500 students. There are other sites under consideration too that would double the intake. Talks are under way with colleges and universities to deliver the programmes, and the club expects to formally launch the sports town initiative later this month or early in the New Year.

 

“The beauty of the higher education economy is it brings up to 50 per cent of students from outside Greater Manchester, people living and spending in Oldham,” Royle says. “So we are doing this for the benefit of the town as well as the club, driving social value and doing something good.”

Plenty of differences between Oldham and Ormskirk having spent time in both but I'll leave it at that.

[spanishfly]

13 hours ago, yarddog73 said:

Plenty of differences between Oldham and Ormskirk having spent time in both but I'll leave it at that.

Oh, I'm with you on that; a very strange comparison for DR to make and I winced when I first read it. I've no idea whether such a masterplan will work in a much bigger former cotton mill town but it does seem to be the direction we're heading in and it must be in line with the owner's philosophy.

 

I'm just here for the footy but it does no harm to keep an eye on the bigger picture.