Micky Mellon rages as referee despite Oldham’s win

Fuming Oldham boss Micky Mellon lambasted referee David Rock despite his 10-man team securing a 1-0 win at Harrogate.

Mellon labelled Rock “a disgrace” after claiming the official accused injured attacker Oli Hammond of “play-acting” and also argued midfielder Ryan Woods should not have been dismissed in the 79th minute.

The contest was settled by Manny Monthe’s first-half goal, with League Two’s best defence going on to hold out for a seventh clean sheet of the season.

But Mellon could not contain his anger at the final whistle.

“I think I’ve seen as bad a refereeing performance as I’ve ever seen,” the Latics manager seethed.

“I don’t want to take anything away from how my players performed but I have to mention how poor he was and if a referee coach was watching him, I can’t believe they won’t be telling him that too.

“It was outrageous. He questioned the integrity of one of my players Oli Hammond, who had dislocated his shoulder.

“I can’t believe he accused him of play-acting and said that he should have left the pitch when he was in excruciating pain and is now going to hospital. That’s a disgrace.

“He also awarded a foul against Ryan Woods when it was him that was fouled, and then he couldn’t wait to send him off when he questioned that. He even found seven minutes of stoppage time from somewhere but our players showed unbelievable character and quality to get a deserved three points and were roared on by our superb support.”

More than 1,000 visiting fans made the trip over the Pennines and, while Harrogate mounted a late onslaught, the hosts have now suffered six straight defeats.

Manager Simon Weaver was seen dissecting the performance afterwards with veteran manager Neil Warnock, who watched the Wetherby Road contest, and the Sulphurites boss said: “I thought we deserved something from the game. The effort from the players was good and it was an intense football match, which we knew it would be.

“They are difficult opposition but I think we more than matched them and could have beaten them. We could have scored a couple of goals in the first five minutes and then it’s a different story, but we just lacked that moment of quality to get on the scoresheet.

“I feel for the players because they represented the club with pride, so it’s difficult to take and just wasn’t to be, but we’ve got to keep a positive mindset and not fall foul of feeling like victims. We could have maybe had a free-kick awarded for their goal, but we didn’t and you can’t go back in time and we did give it everything in the second half.

“Sometimes when you’re in a sticky patch – and we’ve had several before – you have to keep fighting your way through adversity and we are doing that.”