MIKE Ford, Oldham Rugby League Club’s new managing director, has told each of the borough’s amateur/community clubs that the Roughyeds players will train with them at their ground as a “getting to know you” exercise, writes ROGER HALSTEAD.
“It’s a matter of making contact and building relationships, " said Ford, who hopes to start soon with Saddleworth Rangers, where a former Roughyeds player, Wes Rogers, is the new coach.
It’s all part of Ford’s strategy in trying to re-engage with the town of his birth and especially with the local rugby league fraternity, noteworthy because of the number of top professional players that the town of Oldham has produced down the years and is continuing to do so.
He has already had a behind-closed-doors meeting with the Oldham Amateur League, which comprises club representatives and he is working closely with Joe Warburton and John Byram, who are well down the road in the re-establishment of town teams for under-11s to under-14s inclusive.
Last week he gave a special interview to League Express in which he outlined his passion for youth and junior rugby and his dream of seeing every young person in Oldham proud to wear a Roughyeds shirt and proud to boast that they were from Oldham.
