Ex-Oldham RLFC players travelling to away games on official YEDS Supporters Group coaches from their town-centre Fox and Pine base will be offered a discounted price.
The Fox and Pine, on Greaves Street, won a regional CAMRA award in 2022 and is described as a real-ale lovers’ paradise.
The next Oldham game, following their 11-try, 62-18 demolition job on London Skolars, is in Colwyn Bay on the popular North Wales coast on Sunday, March 26 versus North Wales Crusaders (2.30 pm) and the cost for former players of the club will be only £15.
A YEDS official told a Players’ Association meeting on Monday night:
“We are hoping to put on a supporters’ coach for most, if not all, away games this season and the least we can do is offer discounted travel to former players of the club.
“They DO NOT have to be paid-up members of the Players’ Association, but they must have played for the club.”
Nearly 40 of the 52 seats for the trip to Colwyn Bay have already been booked, so anyone wishing to join them is asked to confirm asap by contacting Joe Warburton.
The YEDS spokesman added: “We leave from and return to the Fox and Pine, who look after us royally. On longer trips like this we make it a good day out. At Colwyn Bay, for instance, we will meet up with some of their fans to enjoy the pre-game banter and fun.”
The meeting also heard that the weekly Tuesday Club for all Roughyeds fans at Heyside Cricket Club (12.30pm start) is going from strength to strength.
Those present last week included Mark Chiverall and David (Crazy Horse) Whittaker, a big personality who is as well known in Shaw in later life as he was in his playing days when he was one of the best known players on the local amateur scene.
‘Crazy Horse’ is expected to be at this week’s get-together as well.
The Players’ Association is delighted to welcome new member Peter Mills, now aged 80 but a promising young prop at Watersheddings in the early 1960s.
He had to quit after receiving a nasty knee injury in 1963, but he returned to training some years later after spending several years in the Merchant Navy.
He said at the time:
“Oldham need someone to give Bobby Irving the ball and I’m confident I can do it When I was last at Oldham I was only a boy. Now, I’ve matured physically.”
When he was originally signed from Shawside as a teenager by Gus Risman after only on trial, Risman described him as: “Definitely, a lad with a future.”
He said after last night’s meeting of the ‘old boys’:
“I also had a trial at Wigan. Oldham signed me as soon as they knew that.”
The Players Association is to hold its annual evening with top baritone Victor Michael at The White Hart, Lydgate on Thursday, May 11 in memory of their late, much missed leader Bernard Halford, long-serving secretary of Manchester City and a former ‘A’ team player at Watersheddings in his younger days.
Tickets are £25 including supper, available from Ray Hicks.
