Football can be such a cruel game as Colchester found to their cost at promotion-chasing Oldham's Boundary Park.

The result looks convincing, but this was never a 4-1 game.

Trailing 2-1, but still right in the game with just 14 minutes to play, top scorer Scott McGleish carved out an opening that looked certain to haul the U's back on level terms.

Unfortunately McGleish, who hasn't scored in 14 games, smashed his shot into the side-netting with only the keeper to beat, and before the U's could draw breath Oldham broke quickly to snatch a third goal and put the result out of the visitors' reach.

Former Layer Road boss Mick Wadsworth had not lost a home match ten games since his appointment as the Latics manager last October, but he found his team trailing to a cracking Kemal Izzet volley inside the first 12 minutes.

The move that ended in the back of the home net was without doubt the best of the match.

The U's slick one-touch football turned their bemused rivals inside out and when McLeish laid Micky Stockwell's inch-perfect cross into Izzet's path on the edge of the box the ex-Charlton midfielder unleashed a volley that screamed past home keeper Gary Kelly into the net.

Two minutes later the scores were all-square.

Chris Armstrong won the ball on the left before sending a great cross into the U's penalty box where Allan Smart angled a header just inside the post out of keeper Simon Brown's reach.

The U's hit back immediately and Barrett headed only just wide from a Pinault cross which signalled the start of a short spell of Oldham pressure.

Colchester struck back and a great ball from McGleish set up a chance for Pinault whose vicious, 41st minute angled shot was brilliantly saved by Kelly at the foot of his left-hand post.

But disaster loomed again only two minutes before the break as the U's defence backed off Paul Murray who hit a tremendous 35-yard drive which thundered into the roof of the net.

Alan White had a goalbound header cleared off the line by Murray seconds before the interval and Izzet had another chance whipped off his toes by Kelly early in the second period.

Oldham, however, set about taking the sting out of the U's attacking play by pulling ten men behind the ball and inviting the visitors to try and break them down.

When McGleish missed that 77th minute sitter the game was finally up 60 seconds later when the Latics top scorer David Eyres found the mark again.

Eyres seized on a great ball on the left side of the U's area and smashed a tremendous shot across Brown just inside the post.

Former Cambridge striker Carlo Corazzin, voted man-of-the-match moments earlier, sealed the 4-1 win for the home side with a sizzling drive on the stroke of full-time

Published Monday, March 4, 2002