Ford hopes Geener deal signals new era for Oldham pathway

Oldham managing director Mike Ford says the signing of exciting Waterhead teenager Marcus Geener underlines the club's commitment to creating a pathway for all local talent to play for the Roughyeds.

The 18-year-old Geener has signed a one-year contract with the Betfred League One champions ahead of their return to the Championship in 2025. The terms of the deal will see the forward train and develop with Oldham while playing for Waterhead's first team.

Ford says the move is a statement of intent from the club to developing the stars of the future and retaining them in Oldham, highlighting Geener's immense potential as an example to allow aspiring rugby league players in the town.

"He trained with us last year and we identified that he was a standout of his age group and wanted to give him a taste of professional rugby," Ford told Roughyeds TV.

His part of the bargain was to show commitment, and it was a bit of a test to see if he turned up every Tuesday. He went up and above that on turned up on matchdays as well to help out. What has impressed me most about him apart from his character is his fantastic leg speed. He is tall and that can fill out. His parents say he eats, sleeps and drinks rugby league so that is another tick in his box as he wants to play for his hometown club and really make it.

His attitude and character is where we want it to be as a club. The standards we want to live by every day he fitted into that quite well. The stumbling block was always a playing programme. So we went to Waterhead and discussed signing and developing Marcus, to make him fitter, faster, stronger. We think he can do that quicker in our environment if he is training three times a week from pre-season. But it is unlikely that he will get into the first team at the start of the season so we needed a playing programme which Waterhead are going to provide.

So it is a win for us as we can develop him, and a win for Waterhead because they will get back a better athlete and a better rugby person that will make them better, and a win for Marcus as well. This is a great example of our partnerships in town. We held open training sessions at our community clubs last year and we want to carry that on."

Ford says the Geener deal is a sign of his shared desire with chairman Bill Quinn to keep the best emerging rugby league talent in Oldham, having seen too much talent lost to rivals clubs in the past.

"This underlines that our number one purpose as a club is our pathway," he said.

We are getting the girls and women's up and running with an open day on the 23rd too. We want children and both genders to play for Oldham rugby. It is my job to give them the best pathway to do that. It takes loads of hard work behind the scenes, it doesn't just happen but we are doing it.

We lost three of our best under 15 players who have signed for other clubs. Good luck to them and we will keep track of them but that is what I want to quickly eradicate.

We are never going to have a team of 18 Oldham lads in the squad but I just want to give them the opportunity and everyone in the town the opportunity to play for their club in front of their fans in their stadium. That is what I want to do. There is a lot of growth in our pathway and we are pushing it as much as we can."

Our girls and women's open day and training takes place at Melrose on Saturday November 23rd. To register your interest or for further details please contact Joe Warburton at joewarby9@aol.com or text 07882 848340 with name and age.