FOR Hartlepool United, optimism at Victoria Park has never been so high regarding the club's future.

But for today's Division Three opponents Oldham Athletic and their supporters, life is looking distinctly bleaker by the minute.

When the Latics take on Pool this afternoon, it could be the last time the Lancashire outfit take to the field professionally.

On Monday, when the Football League hold their next board meeting, Oldham could become the first club since Maidstone United and Aldershot to vanish off the footballing map.

Gone have the Boundary Park days of Joe Royle, Denis Irwin and Earl Barrett in the early nineties and in have come the worrying times of the 21st Century.

Chief administrator Jon Newell checks his e-mails at regular intervals to see whether a wealthy benefactor has come to save Oldham from extinction.

The going rate for the former FA Cup semi-finalists is £750,000 and there have been no takers - in fact not even an inquiry - since the advert went in the Financial Times last week.

Ten years ago Oldham were taking on top clubs such as Liverpool and Arsenal.

But two relegations since have put paid to those days and soon the term 'Oldham Athletic Football Club' could become the latest addition to the word memory.

Just last season, despite crippling cash problems, Oldham looked like they had made their first steps towards recovery.

For most of the campaign manager Iain Dowie had his side looking certainties to claim an automatic promotion place and a route back into Division One.

But a slip-up in form led to Oldham dropping back into a play-off place; from there a defeat to QPR left the club staring at life in Division Two yet again.

Dowie has worked a miracle despite working on a financial shoestring and he is now being tipped in many quarters for the vacant post at West Ham United.

Few at Oldham would begrudge the former Northern Ireland striker the chance to shine at a bigger club, but Dowie would surely love to leave with his current employers' future looking more promising.

It all went wrong for Oldham when saviour, or so it seemed at the time, Chris Moore bought the club and invested £4.5m in over two years and almost tripled the wage bill in his quest for promotion.

But a loss of £3m in the last finacial year was the straw that broke the camel's back and out went Moore, who left Oldham trying to find a way of avoiding slipping into oblivion.

Time is fast running out for Oldham, founder members of the Premier League, and don't they know it - after today's trip to Hartlepool the curtain could well come down on their pro football tragedy.