I see dead club ...but I can still pull off Oldham Shezzurrection

IN Hollywood movie The Sixth Sense, poor old Bruce Willis keeps going to work every day as a psychologist without realising he’s dead.

And in a lower-budget thriller at Boundary Park, there has been a supernatural quality about returning legend John Sheridan’s sixth sense as Oldham Athletic’s saviour.

After five previous spells as manager or caretaker, two of them ending in the sack, Shezza simply could not disappear into the sunset and watch a club he genuinely loves drift out of the Football League.

So far, in the transformation of a troubled season scarred by demonstrations against owner Abdallah Lemsagem (below) with tennis balls, flares, pitch invasions and a coffin, the ‘Shezzurrection’ has yielded 11 points from five games.

Oldham are not out of the woods yet. But victory at fellow trapdoor tap-dancers Colchester would potentially lift them four points clear of the red line. And the supporters who idolised Sheridan in 164 games as a player and back-to-back great escapes as a manager in 2016 and 2017 have rallied under his standard again.

“I had more or less packed in the game. Football’s a stressful business and after becoming a grandad I thought I would give it a break,” said the former Republic of Ireland midfielder, now 57.

“Why did I come back again? I’ve just got a lot of fondness for the club. As a player, I had retired when Andy Ritchie brought me back and I ended up playing for another six years.

“Coaching was something I thought I would never go into, but people like Iain Dowie and Ronnie Moore gave me the chance to explore it, which I really appreciated.

“Even though I’ve lost my job here a couple of times and been sacked, I always left on good terms because I’ve got on with the people here and never fell out with anyone.

“I understand that if you’re not doing your job as well as you should be, you lose your job.

“But when I got a phone call asking me to come back and manage the team one more time, I thought ‘Why not?’

“With the position we were in, and having done the job a couple of times previously, the chance of keeping this club in the Football League was too tempting to turn down.”