This season Prostate Cancer UK is the official charity of The Football League. To celebrate, we've asked bloggers from each of the 72 clubs to count down their top five strikers to have worn the No9 shirt, in recognition of the fact that prostate cancer affects one in nine men.

Latics legend: Roger Palmer was Oldham's 'Mr Reliable' for 14 years. Photo courtesy of Action Images

 

Here blogger Paul Prendergast, of owtb.co.uk, selects Oldham's five best No9s… and one to forget!

5. Jim Fryatt (1970-71)
Jim Fryatt was your stereotypical early 70s centre-forward: barrel-chested and balding. He had a demon shot in either foot, was a terrific header of a ball and was bravery personified. His 18 months at the club have lived long in the memory, the iconic strike partnership between him and David Shaw helping win promotion for a team that had struggled the previous year. Fryatt provided entertainment, goals galore and a £70,000 prize from winning the inaugural (and only) Ford Sporting League through goals and entertainment delivered. The Broadway Stand, built with the prize money, stood for 35 years as a legacy of Fryatt's goalscoring prowess.

4. Graeme Sharp (1991-95)
Sharpy is a controversial choice, however if people look beyond his abject failure as manager in the mid-90s, they will realise that in terms of an out-and-out No9, he was probably the finest all-round example to don an Oldham shirt. His 15 goals in 1991-92 helped ensure that Joe Royle's newly promoted side survived comfortably. The highlights of Sharp's year were undoubtedly the brace that secured three points at Maine Road and his four-goal salvo at home to doomed Luton Town. The following year, a back injury ruled him out for half of the season and his impact from then on was minimal, as age and injuries took their toll.

3. Frank Bunn (1987-90)
Few strikers have had such an immediate impact at their new club. Bunn arrived in December 1987 and instantly hit it off with strike partner Andy Ritchie. Previously the team was struggling for both points and goals. After Bunn's arrival, the goals came in abundance and the flow continued throughout his time at the club. His spell as Oldham's No9 would have continued for much longer had it not been for the devastating knee injury that called time on his career in 1990. Despite his premature retirement, Bunn left a legacy of scoring six goals in a League Cup tie against Scarborough in 1989.

2. Eric Gemmell (1947-54)
Tall, quick and with a receding hairline - few could have envisaged the impact Gemmell would have at Boundary Park. In seven years at the club he plundered 120 goals and became Oldham's all-time leading scorer. Gemmell is probably best remembered for a snowy afternoon at Boundary Park against Chester City. By full-time Gemmell had plundered seven goals out of a total of 11 for his team, including six in succession in a remarkable individual scoring feat. Gemmell's record of 109 league goals would stand for 35 years until Roger Palmer broke the record in April 1989. Sportingly, he presented Palmer with a trophy to mark his record passing into history.

1. Roger Palmer (1980-94)
Ironically, Roger Palmer was not an out-and-out centre-forward. However, wherever and whenever he played, he scored goals. Early on he would sometimes forfeit his natural place on the right of midfield and don the No9 shirt, a shift which he did increasingly during the second half of his 14 years at Boundary Park. During those 14 years he didn't just break Eric Gemmell's all-time scoring record, he obliterated it, scoring more than 150 goals in all competitions. I gave him the tag 'Mr Reliable' - whenever we were desperate for a goal Palmer would invariably come up trumps. He had the knack of being in the right place at the right time, ghosting in behind defences unnoticed to devastating effect. His hat-trick at Maine Road (in a 4-1 win over Manchester City) in August 1988 lives in Latics folklore, and to think it was Manchester City who sold him to Oldham Athletic for a paltry £80,000!

And the worst…
Ian Ormondroyd (1987 & 1996-97)
To be honest there were too many to choose from! I am being harsh on 'Stick' here as he had a decent second spell with us in the mid-90s but his first spell on loan from Bradford City in 1987 was dreadful. We had sacrificed Ron Futcher, our main striker, to Bradford City with Ormondroyd moving temporarily to Boundary Park.  He was literally 'Bambi on Ice', which is some feat considering we had an artificial surface at the time! Despite being 6ft 7in tall, Ormondroyd had the ability to shrink to 4ft 6in when he jumped for the ball - he was dreadful in the air. Despite the nightmares he gave us he enjoyed a good career, appearing for Leicester and Aston Villa in the top-flight and had a good spell at Derby. When he returned to Boundary Park in 1996 he had a respectable impact but was part of the side relegated to the third tier in 1997. 

Follow Paul on Twitter @OAFCprozac