Premier League to non-league – now Oldham are win away from EFL return

In 2022, Oldham Athletic’s 116-year association with the English Football League came to an end.

The Latics became the first former Premier League team to leave English football’s top four divisions after an unenviable track record.

One man who witnessed the club at its lowest ebb three years later has started leading the charge back to league football.

The 31-year-old joined the club from Oldham in the disastrous 2022 season, but injuries prevented him from making two starts.

Fondop continued to play the club despite losing its EFL status, and he has since scored 37 goals in 113 National League games.

But what motivated him to remain in Boundary Park?

After the season’s conclusion, John Sheridan, the manager at the time, called me and said, “I need you to come back.” Because I signed you and you only played two games, you owe me. I want you to place this club back where it belongs, Fondop said.

That is why I came, and I didn’t have a chance to help them stay in League Two, so that’s always been my goal.

The club “must be in League Two; they must be higher than that,” the statement read. “It is a step-by-step process.

A takeover of the Latics by local businessman Frank Rothwell was completed between their demise from League Two and the start of the 2022-23 National League season.

Fondop said the difference between then and now is obvious and that Abdallah Lemsagam’s leadership of the club came to an end.

“The club is completely different now. More family-oriented ownership is now being used. The owners approachable and want everyone to feel like family, he continued.

It used to feel toxic. I was a player, but the environment at the time made it seem bad to me. It’s completely different now.

Oldham are not a club that has had much to celebrate in recent years because they have floated around the lower divisions of English football both before and after the turn of the century, having spent 21 years in the third tier before being elevated to League Two in 2018.

Their most recent advancement came in 1991 when they captured the then Division Two second-tier championship.

Their recent performance is depressing to read. The National League finished 12th in their first season, marking their first appearance in the top half of a division since 2009.

Fondop said he was inspired to attend a team meeting with manager Micky Mellon about the club’s tenure and the club’s promotion success.

“Promotion has been ongoing for 34 years. Since I’m 31 years old, I wasn’t even born when they promoted me,” Fondop continued.

“I left the gaffer’s instructions, went home, and wrote 34 years in bold on a piece of paper with my season goals on it,” I wrote on my kitchen wall. My thoughts are always with me.

Because I want to be a part of history and for fans to relive Oldham’s legacy, I keep thinking about it every day. More is being said than is known. It’s been sitting in my kitchen all day, but I won’t take it out until it is finished.

Fondop has an eclectic and varied musical palate and is considering how to ease his aches before leaving Wembley.

He said, “On gamedays I listen to gospel and that is what calms me down.”

Time to Say Goodbye is one of my favorite songs by Andrea Bocelli.