A CLUB shop selling many different items of Oldham RLFC merchandise will be open inside the Bower Fold ground ahead of the 3pm kick-off at the Coral Challenge Cup tie versus Widnes Vikings.
The rejuvenated Championship side, which has been in blistering form since the club was taken over and came out of administration, expect to have at least as many fans at Stalybridge as they had last week at Rochdale, where the attendance was 1,732.
There will be a black-and-white army in attendance so please arrive in good time to ease congestion at the turnstiles and to give yourself, if you wish, time to browse in the Roughyeds shop (cash or cheque sales only please).
Please note also that Bower Fold is a no-smoking ground although e-cigarettes are permitted.
Roughyed Review, our match-day programme, will be on sale at £3 (24 colour pages) and packed with news, views and pictures, including plenty on the Vikings.
Chris Hamilton and Scott Naylor give the ‘inside’ view of all things Roughyeds, while there are the usual interesting and informative pieces by George Cowburn, Michel Turner and Ian Wilson plus picture specials on both the match itself and on the Community Day.
In view of the fact that our crowds so far this season have been encouraging, it will be interesting to see how this attendance compares with the 1,064 for last year’s Hull KR tie and the 2,394 for the Warrington Wolves tie in 2016, both held at Bower Fold.
This season’s crowds in league matches at the Vestacare Stadium have been as follows: 765 v Workington; 546 v Whitehaven; 709 v London Skolars.
The Skolars attendance was clearly boosted significantly by our Roary’s Pride and The Oldham Pledge initiatives, but the fact remains it was the highest figure for a Skolars game since 2010, easily beating the previous six and up by nearly 300 on the equivalent fixture last year.
Since we moved to what was then Whitebank in 2010, Skolars crowds have been as follows:
2010, 747; 2011, 566; 2012, 487; 2013, 515; 2014, 486; 2015, 423; 2018, 419; 2019, 709.
The RFL reports that last weekend was good for League 1 attendances generally with cumulative attendances for that particular round of fixtures up 25 per cent on last year’s equivalent — rising from 2,670 to 3,142 excluding fixtures involving Bradford and York.
The report from HQ goes on: “There were particularly good attendances for Keighley and Oldham, who increased their crowds by 45 per cent and 69 per cent respectively on their equivalent 2018 fixture.”
To get mentioned in RFL despatches like that can only do the club good back at HQ so our message to supporters is this: please keep up the good work by attending games, supporting our initiatives, using our lively and informative website and social media platforms and signing up for the OuRLeague app, which is free to join.
Last week’s OuRLeague Championship Review/Wrap Up had 23,900 views, the highest of the season.
Try Of The Week, which covers both Championship and League 1, had the second highest number of views (17,000) and the second highest number of votes (1,224).
