A LATICS fan’s response to a tweet I put out after this weekend’s loss to Swindon provided me for perhaps the best analogy I’ve seen for the current situation: the whole club needs a jet-wash.

Unable to concentrate on what was an awful game, I quickly noticed just how dilapidated my surroundings were.

In the Rochdale Road End, there were cobwebs on the seat, posters in the toilets at half-time had been there since I first started supporting the club (one was advertising Carbrini) and the seats were faded.

The whole club is far from moving into modern times, and Boundary Park paints the best picture of that. Take, for example, the lighting in the press box which doesn’t work or the seats which were purchased upon promotion to the Premier League.

Before the game, I performed the usual pre-match ritual of meeting up in the OEC fans’ bar in the North Stand. First, I had to traverse through the hole-filled car park behind the Rochdale Road end, then I attempted (to no avail) to look after my shoes which had only been bought the day before as I walked down the mudbath of a hill which connects the two sides of the ground.

If you hadn’t attended Boundary Park before, would the matchday experience entice you to come again? I don’t think that would be the case for many people. When I covered a game at Everton’s Goodison Park at the start of the season, the age of the stadium added a sense of character to the day, but Oldham is much more like a run-down set of flats in dire need of repair than an old Georgian house.

The North Stand was supposed to be a step towards the 21st century, but the countless arguments between the club and Brassbank – who must shoulder as much blame for the state things are currently in – means it remains incomplete and is yet another metaphor for the state of decline Latics are currently in.

If things at the club are to improve, the ground must be renovated too. The Main Stand is clearly aged and seems to be on life support, it is just about good enough for the division we are currently in, but will that be the case in a decade’s time? I’m not sure it will.

Part of the front of the Jimmy Frizzell Stand came off a couple of seasons age and required a cherry picker to tear it down to allow the game to take place while the roof of the Chaddy End is filled with gaps and its sides seem to be coming apart.

How long before things get out of hand to a level where the SAG have to get involved? If Abdallah Lemsagam – and Simon Blitz – want things to improve, then redevelopment is undoubtedly needed.