New Oldham Athletic owner Frank Rothwell has told fans ‘the pain is over’ after completing a £12m of the previously turmoiled club.
At a raucous and at-times surreal press conference the local businessman, who rowed across the Atlantic at the age of 70, vowed to bring the good times back to Boundary Park following the controversial and deeply unpopular regime of Abdallah Lemsagam.
Under the Moroccan former football agent, the Premier League founder members were relegated twice in the space of four years, dropping out of the league entirely last season. Wages were paid late on a number of occasions, 12 managers came and went in four years and desperate fans invaded the pitch on a number of occasions to protest.