How the world’s oldest transatlantic rower stopped Oldham Athletic sinking

There is something stirring in the foothills of the Pennines, the beginnings of a new chapter in the story of a town in need of renewal. According to lore, Oldham was once host to more millionaires per square mile than any conurbation in England at the height of the industrial cotton boom.

Today it is battling against the ravages wrought by a low educational, low-income environment. Change is being driven by an enlightened group, with the town’s football club, Oldham Athletic, at the heart of ambitious plans to transform the landscape.

The club has mirrored the town’s decline. Latics are the only Premier League founder to fall out of the EFL. They were effectively tracing the same death spiral that claimed neighbours Bury, a 30-year decline with little hope of survival until fate brought them and an eccentric local entrepreneur together.

It is a story as uplifting as any in the game, one that places Oldham Athletic among the most enlightened clubs in England, driving change through community engagement, social inclusion and diversity.

The story starts with a game of golf, an early morning two-ball involving Darren Royle, the son of the club’s legendary manager and former England international, Joe, and a friend Jimmy Schofield, the son-in-law of Frank Rothwell, who might just be the world’s most dynamic, fearless grandad.

Rothwell is a movie all his own, a man who left school at 14 semi-literate without a qualification and ended up building a portacabin empire that made him a multi-millionaire. He is also an extreme sports devotee, and will spend Christmas and New Year rowing solo across the Atlantic to lower his own record set two years ago as the oldest to complete the journey single-handed and raise another million to fight Alzheimer’s.

i travelled north to meet Rothwell before his second Atlantic odyssey, and other key actors in the Oldham story, including CEO Royal and manager Micky Mellon, to get a feel for the inspirational work under way, and the club’s plan to escape the National League, on which all else is predicated.

Meet the chairman

The unmistakable profile through the opaque glass, topped by the trademark flat cap, betrayed the identity of Oldham Athletic’s saviour. Once through the door on a cold, frosty morning at Boundary Park, what passes for reception revealed Rothwell in all his chaotic glory, 110 per cent of a man attacking the day with impressive vigour at 73-years-old.

On 12 December he will push out into the Atlantic from Tenerife. A total of 40 vessels are scheduled to start, 11 of them solo participants. Rothwell is the oldest by 29 years. Finishing is not the aim. Finishing first is.

Astonishing in any light, unbelievable when you consider he is a cancer survivor and only a year ago lay in a hospital bed recovering from an emergency heart operation to replace his aorta, chronically distorted to the point of collapse. There is no way back from a failed aorta. “The surgeon had my heart in his hands. Everything after that is a bonus,” he tells i.

Rothwell knows only hard work. He has been at it since he was nine, earning pocket money on a farm in his hometown of Ramsbottom. By 14, he was full time, collecting £2.40 a week as a labourer. Only when he began a day release course in mechanical engineering at Bury Tech did he gain the kind of affirmation unavailable to him at school. “They kept me down a year. They thought I was thick, a numpty,” he said, his face flush with a look that said: “What did they know? I’ll show ‘em.”

Show them he did. “It was the lowest grade course Bury did. I loved it. I found it mega interesting. I got top grades and at 19 I had my City & Guilds [qualification].”

So the magic is in Rothwell’s hands and his brain is bent towards mending and making stuff – talents which he cultivated via lucrative spells fixing plant and machinery in Zambia and Dubai, before returning to build an empire out of portable cabins to furnish the construction industry.

Now the business is in the hands of his offspring, fellow board members Luke and Sue, whilst he applies his engineering oomph to his hobbies, which range from extreme sports like heli-skiing, a pastime he learned at 40, to sailing around the world, to building steam engines.

Rothwell is the owner of the only steam-powered Land Rover in the world. Not because others could not afford such a thing, but because they do not exist, unless you build them yourself, which he did. He also constructs the most beautifully crafted steam-powered railway engines, artefacts that would make any trainspotter swoon.

They have been swooning at Boundary Park since his £13m rescue in July last year. Rothwell is not necessarily a lover of the game, but he understands its power and has held season tickets at neighbouring Manchester United and City as a method of entertaining clients.

“I gave them away to customers. I couldn’t cope with the attitude of the supporters at United. It was always somebody’s fault if they lost. City supporters were better, but the club treated me like shit. We were having the board room experience, round table, two rows behind Sheikh Mansour. Then they refurbish the boardroom. They put us in a corner. We couldn’t even see the bloody telly.”

As a guest of the Oldham board for a home match against Leyton Orient, Rothwell felt the emotion of the Athleticos in the adjacent stand, which he recalled when approached by Royle.

“We did our due diligence, but it still loses money, big style. More than ever we thought. But in any business deal you have to detach yourself. And we believe this will come good.

“It is important we get promoted, of course, but there is huge potential in an 18-acre site, and we have exciting plans for it involving local sporting clubs, not just football, and education, a facility the community can use. I will make it work. Oldham council love it, and have so much trust in what we do.”

There is a philanthropic streak coursing through the Rothwell family that is appreciated by all connected with the club from the manager and players to the club staff and the fans.

As one of five children living in a house without running water, discarded by the system as a callow youth, Rothwell understands what exclusion feels like.

This outsider vision is driving, among other things, an ambition to embrace the Asian community, which makes up 30 per cent of the near quarter-of-a-million population, but feels Boundary Park is not for them.

In May he organised a cricket match involving the town’s Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian communities on the new, £1m hybrid pitch, which he will host again in May. The Oldham Athletic Community Trust is also expanding its outreach programmes into adjacent neighbourhoods populated by British Asians to spread the message of inclusivity. Yes any success will augment the bottom line, but money alone is not the driver.

Rothwell is well protected by a thriving company and investments. Purpose is what his restless souls seeks, and turning his hand to projects that engage him. Though he has never read a novel in his life and writing is hard labour, he gets stuff done. It took him seven hours to finish a letter of protest to the National League, raging about a late fixture change a fortnight ago that he believes contributed to the recent 4-1 reverse at home to Ebbsfleet following successive away wins at Woking and Barnet – trips that totalled more than 850 miles in five days.

He has hands like sandpaper, roughened by daily treatments of surgical spirit to harden the skin. He has been walking from his home in Saddleworth to the top of local landmark Pots & Pans, a distance that totals the best part of a mile, and doing pull-ups with ropes to help prepare for his record second Atlantic attempt.

His first taste of the Atlantic came in a boat. He sailed the Atlantic three times before negotiating the Northwest Passage, eastwards from the Pacific to the Atlantic, across the top of the North American continent, coming within 900 nautical miles of the north pole. He tried to sell his boat worth £500,000 but couldn’t give it away, so off he went again – this time rounding South America via the Panama Canal into the Pacific, south along the coast of Chile, around Cape Horn and home.

The idea to row the Atlantic came from a conversation in a pub about a woman seeking to set a record from the quickest solo crossing for a female. “I thought that’s something I could do. The fastest solo row is 30 days, by a big beast of a Dutchman. I did it in 56 days, which set the oldest person record. When I do it this time I want to win the solo class. Imagine that at my age.”

Indeed. Rothwell will be rowing in a jubba, the traditional dress of Pakistani men, another nod to inclusion at the club. “When you are at sea the sun gets you from everywhere. Factor 50 is useless. In one of these my skin is protected. And I’ve got my cap to keep the sun off my head.” Accompanied by as many as 50 audio books and a playlist from Led Zeppelin to Chopin, Rothwell will have no trouble filling his time. “You only do five things in the boat. You row, sleep, eat, toilet and phone home. The plan is to do it in 49 days this time.”

The day starts at 7.30 with breakfast, granola usually. The first call each day is to wife Judith. “Seen any dolphins, love? That kind of thing.” The second is to race control. “They want to know three things. Are you ok? Is the boat ok? Anything to report?” His third and final call is to son, Luke, who helps with navigation. “He is looking where the whirlpools are in the Atlantic currents. The satellite picks them up. I want to get on the bottom of those, so they accelerate me across. We are also looking at the wind in the days ahead. And then it’s onto the oars in two-hour blocks.”

The boat owned by Rothwell costs £60k, plus provisions. The race organisers order each contestant to carry food for 110 days, which has not pleased Rothwell who is being forced to load provisions, and associated weight, for 60 days that he calculates he will not need. He has an ingenious solution. “On day two, I’m going to throw it over the side.”

Rothwell rows between eight and 14 hours a day. “You don’t see much. Last time I saw another boat on day two. About 500 miles on I thought I heard a helicopter. I looked out and it was a ship. It was massive, within 60 metres. I don’t think they saw me or there would have been men on the gantry. It was empty. I didn’t clock anyone again until one day to go when I saw a boat within half a mile of me. I slowed my boat down so we wouldn’t crash, and he entered the port 11 minutes ahead of me. He was in a poor state, a mental mess. I was absolutely fine.”

For all his love of life on the edge, Rothwell’s ownership of Oldham Athletic might just be the most daring thing he has ever attempted.

Striking gold – with a little help from Eton

The architect of the Rothwell vision is Royle, who had no formal involvement with the club his father managed until he was approached by fans groups desperately seeking an end to the escalating decline overseen by former owner Abdallah Lemsagam. After spending a year trying to put a consortium together, Royle arranged an informal meeting at the Greenfield home of Rothwell, who was and remains a business ambassador for Oldham Council.

Rothwell agreed to meet the owner of the ground, Simon Blitz, to discuss the purchase. The deal was complicated by the separation of club and ground. Blitz would not sell the real estate without Rothwell also buying the club, which was separately owned by Lemsagam.

A deal was struck at a total of £13m, which erased the club’s debt and set it on its present course. Though the club runs at a loss, the business case put by Royle justifies the outlay.

Though the degree of success is ultimately predicated on the success of the team, by making Boundary Park a hub utilised seven days a week by myriad members of the community across a range of services, including health and education as well as sports clubs, alternative revenue streams begin to contribute significantly.

“We struck gold with Frank and his family,” Royle told i.

“They are a family that cares. They are entrenched in the local area and want the best for the community.

“We were speaking to people in Australia, groups in Canada. We scoured the planet, but it was common sense to speak to Frank and stupid that it took so long. I had never met him before we spoke. I knew about his escapades as well as his business success and I was at school with his daughter.

“We had two or three meetings. It was a pinch-me moment. I showed him the vision for what Oldham Athletic could be. He saw the value in that. Right at the start of this we did a purposing session with staff, local council, community trust, supporters foundation, the local media, producing a one-page statement of our dream, our spirit, our beliefs, our character, the greatest imaginable challenge that we have and what we focus on every day.

“It maps out that we are not just a football club but a whole community, Oldham. Our dream is to lead positive, sustainable change in Oldham, not just the club.”

As great as those principles and pledges are, Royle is also a realist. He understands his core business is football, and none of the above is likely without a successful team around which to coalesce. “Clearly we want to focus on winning matches. We want to get the club back into the EFL. And from the business side, you ask what does Oldham the town need? What does it not have?”

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.”

A new dawn

Mellon, the head coach, is a hardened Glaswegian who brings a modernist twist to traditional football values. He has won five promotions in his career, two from the National League. He replaced David Unsworth in October, the club believing his heft and methods are perfectly aligned. It was his mindset that attracted Royle.

“He chose to be out of work for 12 months. He took himself off and mentored head teachers and learned about leaders in education. He is a lifelong learner, constantly improving himself. He is also a serial winner, an inspiration, and we are delighted to have him.”

That’s what Oldham saw in Mellon. What did he see in them? In the context of their stellar neighbours, United and City, Oldham are modest players. In the National League setting, they are the big dog, second only to Chesterfield in attendances. Mellon knows the terrain, having twice guided Tranmere back into the EFL from the National League, and he senses Oldham’s weighty presence.

“We are a club in recovery. That would be fair. What is needed is patience and time, things in low supply. But I see brilliant owners, a great club with fantastic facilities, all the ingredients to be successful, but it is a difficult league because only one goes up. With time and finding the right blend I’m sure we will be a force again.”

Oldham are in their second season in the National League. The first was traumatic, a post-Christmas recovery easing relegation concerns. The instant push hoped for this season did not materialise under Unsworth. Mellon’s brief is to galvanise a talented group, to establish an identity, and instill consistency and belief.

“The game has changed. I miss wingers. I could not name you five out and out wingers today. They all want to come inside these days. Who goes for the byline now? None.”

It’s not all nostalgia. Mellon welcomes the improved technique of today’s players, the better facilities, pitches. “Back in the day you couldn’t play in the middle of winter, and you could pass back to the goalie, who could pick it up and kick long. It produced a different game. Now English players are among the best in the world.”

Mellon identifies the first 100 days as critical, like the presidency of the United States, often the period that defines a term. Halfway through he has yet to win a home game. The wins have come on the road, the most impressive the 4-1 evisceration of second-placed Barnet ten days ago.

That it was followed by a 4-1 defeat at home to relegation-threatened Ebbsfleet highlighted Mellon’s key area of concern, consistency.

“We have lost the same number of games as Barnet. It’s about converting the draws in to wins. I have to keep saying we are in recovery. It has had some tough times for years now.

“To drop from the Premier League to Non-League is hard. But the first sign of improvement, the supports jump right on it. They love it. It’s about creating a team that they feel represents them. Everything starts from winning and then we can pretty things up. You need good players and then you have to give them the best chance of winning.”

The defeat to Ebbsfleet hurt. His emotions read like a weather forecast. “Saturday night was bad, Sunday was bad, getting worse, Monday was bad, slightly improving, Tuesday ready to go again.”

It was in this moment of improving weather that I intercepted Mellon. He was clear and far-sighted again, the optimism returning. “All I am trying to do here, all you can do is help the players be the best they can be. Try to keep standards high, to remind them of the mentality they need to be successful. You don’t look for excuses but for reasons. They played three games in a week, so they were still recovering from two long journeys. I had five coming back from long term lay-offs. They take direction, they like you to talk to them to help make them better.”

Mellon is about empowering his players to think for themselves, to give them permission to act. “If you decide there is an opportunity to affect the game then do it, go, it doesn’t matter where you are on the pitch. But make sure you make the right decision. Decision-making is the biggest thing in football. That will never change. Good players get that.”

Video analysis is a big part of Mellon’s approach. “It saves you time. Besides the players these days come from academies. They are used to it and expect it. It encourages best practice.”

Mellon is an admirer of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool and often uses their patterns to make his points. “As a manager, or any leader, you are a salesman of ideas. I’m trying to get my players to buy into them. So when you show Liverpool pressing from the front you can go to you players and say if its good enough for them etc.

“I like the way Liverpool go forward quickly. They don’t mess about. They have great athleticism and the work they do with and without the ball is incredible and they do it every week. Any time I have been successful I have had a baseline of performance that I can rely on. As we drive this forward that is what I want to see. We are starting to see it, but we can improve in that area.”

Mellon understands the importance of this club to its community, how much it means to the supporters and how it impacts their lives. He is from Glasgow, after all. What is in his favour is how the new regime understands that too. That shared energy is transformational. “Everybody wants the same thing. They want Oldham to have a cracking football team and for a manager, that is a fantastic place to be. It’s a good environment to be in.

“I see the owners all the time. Frank is always around, knocking walls down (and drilling bore holes. If you stand still long enough he will jet wash you, is the joke here.) When he knocked the wall down he broke the heating. Okay for him, he is off to row the Atlantic.” Glaswegian humour travels well in these parts, as it would in a supportive atmosphere. “Frank has spent a lot of money on facilities, the players want for nothing here. I’m enjoying it, and we will get to a place where we are representing the people of Oldham properly.”

‘It wasn’t right’

Will Sutton, 21, has come through the junior ranks here. He was in the team when Mellon arrived but is presently contributing from the bench. It is a process for a young defender learning his trade. Importantly, he feels no less a member of the group than he did when he was starting, which is testament to Mellon’s inclusive approach and the altered feel of the place in the Rothwell era.

“The general positivity around the place is so different and a much better environment than I was used to a couple of seasons ago under the previous owners. We are just hoping the positive vibe starts to click on the pitch more consistently.

“Oldham is my first and only club. It’s only now that its all changed that I can appreciate how bad it was, how some of the players were treated by the old owners. From when I joined the club at 16 until they left, I had seen the owners about two times. When I think how much we see Frank, how hands on he is with things, being so enthusiastic and passionate I can see it wasn’t right before. We were on a clear downward, negative path. We are now having to pay catch-up, but we are definitely improving.

“The gaffer is so calm. That’s his experience. Ebbsfleet was disappointing after two positive away trips, but it’s one game. Mickey has been through that scenario so many times. It’s clear to see why he has been so successful, especially in this league. Everything has been simplified. It is clear how he wants us to play, it’s about being patient now for it all to click, as it did against Barnet.”

Sutton is particularly appreciative of the personal touch.

“The gaffer has already had a few one-to-ones with me, in the office talking about plans going forward or on the pitch talking through stuff. His assistant too. Their communication has been good with me.

“I have not been playing these past few weeks, so it was a general chat. I’m sure when I’m back in I will get more information and detail. He makes it clear the lads not starting are not neglected. I don’t feel shoved to one side.”

Sutton also receives mentoring form academy boss Paul Murray, who worked with him closely during his youth phase. This is not an accident. There is a connecting thread linking all the elements. And it feels good to be part of something stable and forward-looking.

“There was no vision with the previous owners. It didn’t feel professional. We feel a greater drive and passion to succeed on the pitch now. The bar is set. That Barnet game was the level we have to reach every week.”

Sutton is diplomatic in comparing Mellon with Unsworth, who was in his first management role after a decade in coaching and lost his job following seven successive defeats. “You could see straight away he had history behind him. It was naturally an instant change in how confident we felt. It is still early. We are still in transition, but in the next month or so I like to think we will start to see the kind of performances the gaffer wants, and the supporters expect.”

To donate to Rothwell’s fund-raising campaign go to www.justgiving.com/campaign/frankrothwell