EVEN before they won the Challenge Cup in a magnificent Wembley occasion on Saturday, Leigh Leopards had done more than enough (they currently stand fourth in Super League) to inspire Oldham to strive for similar success, said the Roughyeds’ managing director Mike Ford.
A former Leigh player, Ford said:
“If Leigh can do it, so can Oldham given time. We still have loads of work to do to reconnect with the town, but by continuing to do that we can go far. We are not making promises or talking about what we will do by such and such a year, but there are exciting things happening in Rugby League in Oldham right now, some of which we are not yet ready to announce. As I keep saying, this is not OUR club, its YOUR club. We are just the custodians.
“Two things excite me most — our pledge to get the kids of the town back on board, interested in the club and talking about the club again and, secondly, the amazing potential at Melrose and all we are doing there. My dream is to get the Rochdale Road stand at Boundary Park heaving with young people, boys and girls, all cheering us on.
“That stadium and that pitch are brilliant. How proud will be the Oldham players to run out there – especially the Oldham-born lads with family and friends there cheering them on. I’m convinced the team will be inspired.
“We want to win every game, obviously, but as I see it, our main objective initially is to get the town behind us again and, especially, to get all the town’s youngsters who are interested in Rugby League interested in Roughyeds. If and when we can do that, we’ll be getting somewhere, but remember this: whatever Leigh have done we can do too. It won’t happen overnight – it didn’t for Leigh – but we have made a start. We are on our way."
Leigh and Hull KR served up a wonderful Wembley occasion, writes ROGER HALSTEAD, and it couldn’t have come at a better time with the game’s future balanced on a knife edge, TV contracts to the fore and the IMG thoughts and proposals likely to have a huge bearing on how the future pans out.
Roughyeds CAN do a Leigh if the town wants it badly enough. That’s the key. Leigh did it with a catchment of roughly 50,000 people. Where does that leave the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham with its 250,000 inhabitants ?
The involvement of Oldham Council is of paramount importance. The borough is led by its elected councillors and the Council’s £1M investment in a new, state-of-the-art playing pitch at Boundary Park, as part of the town’s vision to put Oldham back on the sporting map of this country, sends out all the right messages.
Athletic, Oldham Rugby and the Council are in this together and long may that continue for a town that, not all that long ago in the great scheme of things, saw Athletic at Wembley and Roughyeds one step from Wembley about the same time. The BBC sent a camera crew and a reporter into the offices of my then employer, the late, lamented Oldham Evening Chronicle to discover how the local paper was tackling such a fantastic sporting double-header in a former Lancashire mill town.
Joe Royle, then Latics manager, called it his “pinch me” season. Tony Barrow, Oldham coach back then, had guided the lads from Watersheddings to promotion from Division Two, to a Second Division Premiership triumph at Old Trafford, to the Lancashire Cup Final with wins en route against St Helens away and Wigan at home, to the Regal Trophy third round, to a semi-final Challenge Cup tie against Warrington after a third round triumph against World Club Champions Widnes at Naughton Park and to a Civic Reception back in Oldham following a drive from Old Trafford on the top deck of a specially-commissioned Oldham bus.
No wonder the chairman at the time, John Chadwick, made his well-known statement: “We did the Second Division proud !”
Ford was scrum-half in that wonderful side and memories will come flooding back at Boundary Park on Wednesday of next week, August 23, when Ford, now the club’s interim head coach and managing director, meets up again with his former boss Barrow, who will be a face in the crowd at the Workington game. Ford and Barrow will also try to get into hospitality, but neither can promise, Ford because he will be in the dressing room pre-match on the other side of the ground.
Another big name from that team, prop John Fieldhouse, will host a Q and A in the hospitality suite. Admission to the hospitality suite is by ticket only, £25, but season-ticket holders, under16s who get into the match free and anyone who has already bought a match ticket, can upgrade to hospitality for £10.00 so as not to miss out.
