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Oldham fans stage pitch invasion as former Premier League side suffer relegation to non-league football

Irate fans of Oldham Athletic showed their anger with a late pitch invasion as the Latics stuttered towards a defeat that sealed their historic relegation to the National League.

The club were trailing 2-1 to Salford City when the match was abandoned in the 79th minute, a result that was confirmed behind closed doors later on Saturday to seal their fate.

One of the founder members of the Premier League in 1992-93, Oldham become the first team to have played in the division to fall into the non-league game should their relegation be confirmed.

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Watch Oldham fans rage as relegation looms

From Premier League to National League

Relegation to the fifth tier caps a slow but steady fall from the top of English football over the past three decades for the side.

Oldham gained promotion to Division One for the first time in 68 years in time for the final season under the old English league system in 1991-92, and remained in the top flight for the start of the Premier League the following year.

The Latics' finest hour came in the 1993-94 FA Cup, where only a last-minute Mark Hughes equaliser prevented them from toppling Manchester United in the semi-final and reaching the decider at Wembley.

In the Premier League, however, they had battled relegation, and went down to Division One in the same campaign as their FA Cup heroics to begin a long story of decline.

Further demotion to Division Two followed in 1996-97, and in 2017-18 Oldham went down to fourth-tier League Two, a level they had last played back at the start of the 1970s.

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