This piece was written by IAN WILSON, Oldham match reporter for League Express and secretary of Rugby Oldham, our Supporters’ Trust, and the last of the articles published in the Awards Evening brochure.
When my Oldham-born dad took me, a very wide-eyed eight-year old to Maine Road in May, 1955 to watch Oldham play Warrington in that season’s Championship final (we lost 3-7) little did I know what it would lead to. A lifetime as a supporter has involved as wide a range of experiences and emotions, of huge highs and extreme lows, of friendships and of family developments as can be imagined.
If I were to try even just to touch on the most memorable elements of this lifetime supporter adventure, there wouldn’t be room for much else in this dinner booklet. They were not all highs even in the very successful 50s, of course — I recall one horrendous bike trip back from Leigh after one of our several let-down performances in the Challenge Cup in atrocious weather in 1957, for example. Then, inevitably, 1964 and the Cup games v Hull KR — and I also got in trouble for nipping off school for both the Swinton and Fartown disappointments!
Much, much happier, of course, was the crucial championship semi-final victory at Watersheddings over Leeds in 1957, prior to the glorious day at Odsal when we actually won it
After I had moved to Macclesfield in 1968, my regular supporter days took a pause and bizarrely didn’t restart until a victory at ‘Sheddings, 21-12 over Keighley in a Div.2 game in 1981–that’s when I first ‘treated’ my wife and two children to an afternoon out watching ‘our’ team. They duly became utterly hooked so that for many years afterwards Sundays became family outings to wherever OLDHAM RLFC were playing, rain or shine, a decent side or not.
Once reminiscences begin, they pour out ! What about the 10-8 win v Wigan in the cup and the marvellous atmosphere when we narrowly lost to the mighty Aussie tourists in 1986-7 or the two nail-biting Old Trafford wins v Featherstone and Hull KR. Then came Super League — the double over Leeds in 1996, the fantastic win v North Queensland and little Oldham going to Paris and getting a draw there stand out to me. Then, getting closer to the present day, who will ever forget the euphoria of the Law Cup win in January, 1998 or the same feeling as Mike Ford’s side came back to beat Hornets in the promotion play-off semi in 2001.
Of course, there have been lots of lows too over the past 68 years. The two cup-semi losses to Cas and Warrington and the devastating loss in Paris in ‘97 that heralded relegation and then liquidation stand out, I suppose. The loss to Widnes in the 2001 promotion final was probably not really unexpected though, then the six promotion final defeats in the eight years 2007–14 were pretty unpalatable!
But then we come to the, for me, final highlight — the announcement of the takeover of the club by the new, current regime, given the ‘back to its Oldham roots’ message that Messrs Ford and Winnard, in particular, have been trumpeting from day one. Rugby Oldham has, from its inception in 2005, focused on supporting the development of all aspects of rugby league in the town and Mike’s regular mantra, that ‘this club belongs to you, the people of Oldham. We are merely the current custodians’, fits exactly with the Trust’s central philosophy. We are now clearly travelling in the right direction. Let this be just the first of many successful dinners that reflect ORLFC going from strength to strength.
For the benefit of supporters who may not know, one of the two children to whom Ian refers in par four, is now a third-generation Roughyeds fan, living with his own family in Manchester and employed by the RFL as the organisation’s head of communications. After working in the rugby league media for a time, notably for The Guardian, Andy Wilson took a media job with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) before landing the job of top media man at the Rugby Football League some years ago. His sister, married with a family of her own, lives in California but tries to watch Oldham as often as she can whenever she and her family are back at her parents’ home in Macclesfield.
