Keighley game stirs the memories

OLDHAM will have a massive following at Keighley this Sunday. The YEDS have four coaches going and all the signs are that loads of others who watch the Roughyeds will be at Cougar Park – dare I say Lawkholme Lane ? – in the hope that we will beat Keighley and thus clinch mathematically top spot in Betfred League One. If that happens we will win the big one, the accolade we have been seeking since last November – PROMOTION.

A step up to the Championship is automatic for the team finishing top. That's why a win at Keighley is so important and why so many fans of ours will be heading in the direction of Bronte Country.

We've lost only one league game all season, at Keighley no less, so that's another reason why our fans will be there in force.

Currently, we are top, Keighley are second. We have won 16 of our 17 games, our only defeat coming at Keighley. The Bronte men have already clinched second place – top of the play-off five – but they have lost two and drawn one so they are three points behind us (three to play) and they have significantly inferior for-and-against
figures.

They were well beaten at our place and they lost at home to Hunslet and drew at home to Rochdale. They were fortunate, shall we say, to win at Rochdale last time and they have to go there again.

Our second game over there is more than a loop fixture; as far as we are concerned it stirs the memory because to all intents and purposes it's a promotion final and we've had one or two of those across the years

IF WE WIN WE GO UP; SIMPLE AS THAT.

Keighley can still do it, but to be realistic and keep their hopes alive they need to beat us, as they did on the same ground a few weeks back.

Several factors show that there is far more to this game than two points . . . factors like coach Sean Long's pre-match comments and speculation that we might take a thousand fans, as many as watched our 84-0 win at Boundary Park last time out.

On a personal note, my eldest son is driving up from Bangor in North Wales; my middle son is coming by train from Ashford in Kent, changing in London and Leeds; and my youngest son, in New Zealand, says he will be glued to his phone, waiting for social media updates.

My missus, Val, is going too . . . It must be a big match !

Oh, and our former player Kevin Fitzpatrick, now a BBC news reporter, rang for a chat and talked about the return of the glory days,

Will Oldham do it ? Like Sean Long, I think they will. It will be tough because Keighley must win and Oldham can afford to lose, but I thought Roughyeds would have snatched it last time if those late efforts by Danny Craven and Adam Lawton had gone the other way.

See you in Keighley!

Header image by Jane Henthorn

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