CHAIRMAN Bill Quinn, managing director Mike Ford and the seven-man board as a whole have confirmed that former club chairman John Chadwick will be closely associated with Oldham RLFC in a newly-created role as vice-president. He will NOT sit on the board, but he will attend meetings, join in debate and offer his vast experience as a club official to the group which now owns Oldham Rugby League Football Club.
“Not only is John a personal friend of our chairman, Bill Quinn, but he is steeped in Rugby League and its people. He has a great deal to offer this club and we are delighted to have him as our vice-president,”
said Ford who, as a former player and player-coach at Oldham, has known John and has had dealings with him over a time span of many years.
Now aged 77, and living in Lytham St Anne’s on the Fylde coast, John was born in Shaw and he is as proud of that as he is to be a former secretary and chairman of Oldham RLFC — well, nearly, not quite! — which he has supported since he was a boy.
He joined the board at Watersheddings for the 1989-90 season and was chairman in 1990-91 and 1991-92. In total, he was on the board for about eight years.
He said:
“I’ll just be glad to help in any way I can. To start with, we’ve got to bang the drum. It seems to me there are a lot of people who don’t even know where we play or that Oldham has a team any more and that’s something we have to address smartly.
“The long-term aim is to get back into Super League, but that’s a long way down the track. More immediately, we’ve got to get out of League 1 and get to Boundary Park and build from there. Right now, it’s about getting the town behind us, hence the decision to make Sunday’s home game FREE for everyone and to have an open forum for everyone next week. We hope you will all attend that and ask your questions.”
Relative to Sunday’s big game, the board has been highly encouraged by the fans’ response to FREE admission with the obtaining of tickets online via the club website. The match is already a full house and up to capacity so please don’t come unless you already have a ticket because the match is all ticket, you won’t get in without one and we hate to see anyone disappointed.
