Haydn Walker RIP, a desperately sad day at Oldham RLFC

Oldham Rugby League Club was a desperately sad place today following the shock death of former director Haydn Walker in Wigan Infirmary this morning. He was 62.

“He had been in hospital for a month,” said club managing director Mike Ford, who worked closely with Haydn when they were player-coach and assistant coach respectively at Roughyeds more than 20 years ago.

“This is a very sad day indeed. Haydn was not only an accomplished coach. He was a great guy, who was a key figure in everything we are doing at the club until his shock resignation a few weeks back. He has always said his decision to call it a day had nothing to do with his ill health, but he was travelling from Wigan every day and as someone with health problems that was bound to affect him.

He was diabetic and he had lost a toe and if you remember he came to our first media conference 17 months ago in a wheelchair.

He went into hospital with a chest infection a month ago and we were told to expect the worst earlier this week. He said he would like to speak to chairman Bill Quinn and me and we went to see him on Wednesday when he said that, in his opinion, Bill was the best chairman the club had ever had.

We shared some great times together when we were at the club as player-coach and assistant coach. Haydn did a lot of the donkey work and what we might call the less glamorous side of the work. We had a reserve team back then and he was in charge of that, but it isn’t widely known that he was a top coach in his own right, who had worked for Wigan and who had coached Andy Farrell in Farrell’s young days at Central Park.

At Oldham, Haydn and Jacko, a former Wigan scout, were great friends and Haydn had a lot to do with our signing of lads like Warren Barrow, Joey Hayes and Pat Rich,

He worked for the RFL when I went into Rugby Union and it was always the intention that he would be one of our new board’s main men. He became full-time at Oldham until his resignation.

This is a very sad day at the club. All our sincere condolences go out to Haydn’s family and friends. He will never be forgotten here – a true rugby league man and a proud Wiganer, but a man who had a special place in his heart for Oldham.

There will be a minute’s silence before the Oldham v Midlands Hurricanes game at Boundary Park on Sunday when the Oldham players will wear black arm bands.