Dewsbury Rams (champions) and third-placed Doncaster (play-off winners) have won promotion from Betfred League One to the Betfred Championship which, if things stand as they are now, will see a third-tier division of only nine clubs next season.
Keighley Cougars and Newcastle Thunder were relegated from the Championship to replace Dewsbury and Doncaster, thus giving us in 2024 a League One line-up featuring Cornwall, Hunslet, Keighley Cougars, Midlands Hurricanes, Newcastle Thunder, North Wales Crusaders, OLDHAM, Rochdale Hornets and Workington Town.
The withdrawal of first West Wales Raiders and, more recently, London Skolars has reduced the number of clubs in Betfred League One from 11 to nine and, even last season, when there were ten teams in competition, there were several Sundays when clubs were inactive. It remains to be seen what happens now and the club has promised updates as and when there is something to say, writes ROGER HALSTEAD.
Wakefield Trinity have been relegated from Super League to the Championship, but it isn’t yet known which club will replace them. Featherstone Rovers or Toulouse Olympique are favourites, but Bradford Bulls, Sheffield Eagles, London Broncos and York Knights are also in contention.
Here in Oldham we are still waiting for the announcement of a head coach and new or extended offers to new players, given that 14 are going and so far only five are committed to be with Roughyeds next season, namely Jamie Ellis, Josh Johnson, Jordan Turner , Joe Wardle and Emmerson Whittel, who is the only player of the current squad to be on a two-year deal. Again, the club will make announcements as and when there is something to say that is set in stone.
Watch this space!
Also locally, the Players’ Association (that’s the one that used to be known as the Ex-Players) is getting more and more involved with what goes on generally in rugby league in the Oldham area, thanks to the sheer graft and enthusiasm of secretary Joe Warburton, treasurer John Watkins and the non-titled Ray Hicks, whose interest locally is legendary and who plays a massive part in the running of the Association, to such an extent that, like Warburton and Watkins, he has close associations with Oldham RLFC, with the Oldham Amateur League, with Rugby Oldham (the Supporters’ Trust), with the Oldham RL Heritage Trust, with the supporters’ group YEDS and with the ‘Oldham RL family’ which meets each Tuesday, from 12.30pm to 2pm at Heyside Cricket Club.
One of the main reasons for dropping the ‘Ex’ in the Players’ Association title is that it is now open to present-day players as well as those of yesteryear. Mike Ford, in fact, has signed up most of the current squad although it is fair to say that most people who are regular attenders at the Association’s monthly meetings at Springhead Sports and Social Club (first Monday of the month at 7.45pm) are, in fact, ex-players, most notably Adrian Alexander (an ambassador for Oldham RLFC), Martin Murphy (president of the Players’ Association), Mike Elliott (chairman) and the likes of Brian Clarke, Tommy Leyland, Terry Ogden, Dave Walker, Dave Kenway, Joe Warburton, Ray Hicks, Peter Mills and John Watkins (treasurer), who isn’t a former player but who was such an influential member of the dressing room in years gone by that he has a phenomenal knowledge of players past and present covering nearly 50 years.
Remember The Memory Man on the wireless all those years ago? Well, that bloke had nothing on our John.
If you played for any Oldham team — that’s first team, ‘A’ team, ‘B’ team or Colts — the Association would be thrilled to see you at Springhead on the first Monday of each month. Membership costs only £10 for a year and the benefits are many, not least the friendship, mateship and comradeship of mixing and mingling with old pals and teammates, but more practical things like discounts on match tickets, trips to rugby dinners and the like and outings with a rugby league theme that are brilliant rugby occasions.
The next ‘biggie’ is the annual dinner at St Herbert’s on Broadway, near its junction with Middleton Road and opposite Chadderton FC, on Friday, November 3, Tickets are £35 a head but for that you’ll get a first-class, four-course meal, the opportunity to meet up with loads of old friends and old players, presentations, toasts, Brian Noble as guest speaker, the incomparable Austin Knight of Glossop as comedian and the brilliant Pete Emmett, an after-dinner speaker in his own right, as MC.
Contact Joe Warburton (0788 284 8340) or John Watkins (0797 461 2038) for more details and tickets, but don’t delay. Tickets are going ’like hot cakes’ – that’s TRUE, not merely a sales pitch, so ring today and do not delay.
On a different them, the Heritage Trust continues to circulate Heritage certificates to more than 1,000 former players, the latest ones going to Iva Ropati in New Zealand and to Clive Hunter in Spain.
Iva, a classy centre, scored 25 tries in 36 games for Oldham in the early 1990s and then went on to play for Featherstone, Parramatta Eels and Auckland Warriors, settling in his native New Zealand where he is now principal of an educational college.
Hunter, also a centre, joined us from Leigh and now lives in Spain.
Paul Greene, a coach at Oldham St Anne’s, meanwhile, has revealed that former Halifax player Neil Cherryholme now lives and works in the Oldham area and is, in fact, operating as a coach with St Anne’s.
“There’s a buzz coming back into Rugby League in Oldham and that’s fantastic,”
said Paul, who lives in Royton, within walking distance of Boundary Park, where Oldham will play next season.
He added:
“Neil is with us now and we’ve had a great season, culminating in promotion, as did Waterhead too, in a division higher than us. What Fordy and Joe Warburton are doing at Oldham with the town’s kids is terrific and defo a big step in the right direction. It breaks my heart, as it does many others, to see so many replica shirts around town from Leeds, Saints, Wigan etc and none from Oldham, but that will change over time now as more and more people return to watch the Roughyeds’
“The new stand at Latics is a great place from which to watch rugby league. I like the quality of players Oldham are signing and I’m defo going to be a season-ticket holder next season. I know lots of new Oldham supporters too who will be going next season. Rugby League in Oldham is on the way up again, make no mistake about that.”
