THERE is more news today about Sunday’s big game at the Vestacare Stadium (3pm) when third-placed Oldham clash with second-placed Doncaster in a match which will go a long way to determining the Roughyeds’ season.
Unbeaten at home, and with 400 points scored in ten games (eight wins, one defeat, one draw), Oldham have got local people talking about them again and a four-figure crowd is expected to get behind them on Sunday against the only team to have beaten them in the league in the first half of the season.
Now comes news that next year’s Saddleworth Rangers under-15s are to use the occasion to raise money for their ambitious, once-in-a-lifetime trip next year to Jamaica. This year’s under-15s have just come back from the South of France on their annual trip abroad and now it’s the turn of the 2024 under-15s to go through the planning stage for their trip, which is even further afield.
Their sponsored run across laps of the Vestacare playing arena will start at 2pm — one hour before Oldham go into battle against Doncaster — and will last for 24 minutes to correspond with the year of their trip to Jamaica, 2024.
It’s just one of several promotional events on the big day as Oldham RLFC celebrates both Father’s Day and Armed Forces Week, which starts on Monday.
To mark the double celebration, the club’s board of directors has slashed admission prices to £10 for military personnel past and present; to anyone who takes their father to the game; and to the parents of any child who is wearing a rugby shirt of any kind.
In addition, the Oldham Scottish Pipe Band will play at half-time to salute past and present Forces personnel and there will be a Minute’s Silence before kick-off after Major Eddy Harker has presented the match ball to the referee.
Former Oldham player Wes Rogers has returned to Saddleworth as head coach after Sean Whitehead and Paul Ashton stepped down as men in charge.
