Oldham Athletic have been relegated to the National League in chaotic fashion on a day when their fixture against Salford ended behind closed doors.
Hundreds of Oldham fans stormed the pitch at Boundary Park with 11 minutes of the game remaining forcing it to be considerably delayed after it was suspended by the match officials. The home side were 2-1 down at the time, and with Barrow and Stevenage winning they were heading for relegation from League Two.
Pockets of supporters entered the pitch and the unsavoury scenes saw fans protest against the club's demise under owner Abdallah Lemsagam. A huge banner saying 'get out of our club' was held aloft with stewards and police attempting to remove the protestors .
Referee Robert Madley led both sets of players off the pitch and it was unclear whether the game would be played to a finish. At 6.45pm on Saturday Oldham's social media channels confirmed the game was played to a finish, with the score finishing 2-1 to Salford.
Former Oldham striker Matt Smith opened the scoring for the Ammies before Davis Keillor-Dunn restored parity. But Brandon Thomas-Asante struck for the visitors just before the break with what proved to be the clinching goal.
Latics' manager John Sheridan, in his sixth spell as head coach, had attempted to get fans to leave the pitch but many still remained.
The result means that Oldham become the first-ever team to play in the Premier League since its formation in 1992 and go on to be relegated into non-league. They were part of the first-ever Premier League season, in 1992-93, finishing 19th in the 22-team division before being relegated the season after.
Salford City co-owner and former Manchester United player Gary Neville was at the game and tweeted: ".Just left Oldham v Salford . Oldham fans on the pitch and it’s pretty moody."
By suffering the ignominy of relegation into the National League Oldham are now set to suffer a financial hit to the tune of six or possibly seven figures, according to football finance guru Kieran Maguire.
"If you're relegated you get parachute payments for two seasons from the EFL but immediately you lose all of what's referred to as solidarity payments from the Premier League and they're worth around about £700,000 a year," he told the Oldham Times.
"Parachute payments you get £400,000 a year in League Two from EFL deals so I think that gets halved, so you go from about £1.1million to £200,000, and the National League is a really tough league.
"The whole of the National League apart from one club is full time and most of the clubs in National League North are full time. You've seen clubs like Stockport drop in to National League North as well so there's no guarantee you'll even stay there."
