Lockwood’s death a reminder of different times – and a different game.

I wonder how many of our older fans remember an Oldham team pic featuring the legendary Brian Lockwood, Geoff Clarkson, Bill Francis, Ken Gwilliam and Clive Sullivan?

Those were the days all right — the best part of 50 years ago.

I spotted the team pic in question in the late Brian Walker's book, 'Roughyeds — The Story', while researching facts concerning the stylish Lockwood, who played 15 games for Oldham in season 1980-81 and whose death recently, at the age of 78, sent shock waves throughout the Rugby League.

I remember it well. So, too, does John Chadwick, Bill Quinn's mate and mentor, a former chairman and secretary of our great club and back at the club now as vice-president. John is not officially on the board, but he attends all board meetings and is clearly a key member of the current governing body.

"Who can ever forget Brian Lockwood ?" said John. "When we signed him from Hull KR, I was in my early days as club secretary. Ray Hatton was chairman and he and I signed both Locky and Clive Sullivan while sitting in the living room at the Hull home of Colin Hutton."

Hutton himself had a big part to play in the Oldham story, first as the Hull FC full-back in the 1957 RFL Championship Final at Odsal, which Roughyeds won famously and seven years later when he was Hull KR coach in that never-to-be-forgotten 1964 Challenge Cup semi-final in which the Robins finally got the better of Second Division Oldham at the third attempt.

In the first replay at Station Road, Cumbrian forward Geoff Robinson scored a try that put Oldham in front early in extra time, but referee Denis Davies then abandoned the game due to poor light.

Thus reprieved, Rovers made no mistake in the third game at Fartown, but Hutton, originally from Widnes, always had a soft spot for Oldham and once told me: "We (Rovers) were the only team ever to go to Wembley, having been beaten in a semi-final."

Years later, Hutton was guest-of-honour at a Rugby League Writers and Broadcasters' Association dinner at Headingley when he received a special award, similar to Lifetimes Achievement, and afterwards I was called to the mike as a recipient of life-membership of the RLWBA.

Anyway, I digress. Locky's best years were with hometown Castleford — he was a cousin of the great Roger Millward and he often played like him too — and then with Hull KR. He was also a World Cup winner with Great Britain, and he also played in Australia with Canterbury-Bankstoewn and with Balmain.

In total he played nearly 500 senior games, but he was well passed his best when he and the iconic Sully signed for Oldham, who finished bottom of the old First Division in 1981, with only seven wins and two draws from 30 games.

Exactly what went wrong I don't recall, but with talented youngsters like Terry Flanagan, Ray Ashton, Paddy Kirwan, Andy Goodway and Mick Worrall still to come through, the idea was that players like Lockwood, Clarkson, Gwilliam and Sullivan would more than adequately do the business in the short term.

Added John: "We signed Ashley McEwen from New Zealand about the same time. Ashley did an excellent job for us — a very accomplished player, no doubt about that."

Luck is needed — as well as money and good judgement — and I firmly believe that the late Fred Ashworth, top Oldham player and committee man, was on the right lines when he talked about recruitment of the great team of the fifties and said: "We signed top players, as many other clubs did, but what set us aside from the rest was LUCK. All our signings gelled into a TEAM. That was the key factor and that was just as important as talent.

"You need talent, good players, money and judgement, but you also need luck,"

In 1980-81, York finished top of the Second Division, Wigan, would you believe, were second and Huddersfield were also in there.

Top First Division clubs were Bradford Northern, Warrington, Hull KR, Wakefield, Castleford and Widnes, while Oldham were bottom, five points behind Workington and Salford, six behind Halifax, eight behind Featherstone, ten behind Barrow.

Mid-table in a 16-club division were Hull, St Helens, Leigh and Leeds in that order — proof indeed that anything can happen as the years go by.

These days, of course, it's a different society and a different game. Defence is a bigger issue than it ever was, back in the day there were no 'middles', scrum-halves played a significantly different way to his stand-off (these days they are just 'halves' who figure either side of the ruck, as do second-rowers) and loose forwards were ball-players in the main, often striking up partnerships with their scrum-half direct from the scrum.

These days there is more emphasis on territorial position than there ever was; a penalty in strking distance of the posts used to be an automatic shot at goal, now it's open to debate; and there are many more significant changes to the game we used to know.

The younger generation, of course, have been brought up on today's game and in any event you can advance a very commanding argument that rugby league today is a more scientific game with more crucial decisions to be made on the spur of the moment.

Either way, players like Lockwood wouldn't recognise rugby league in 2024.

He was a master at doing what he did, but the signing system was also different back then and it's doubtful that the circumstances surrounding his move to Widnes for £2,000 would have happened in this day and age.

As the late, much lamented Brian Walker put it: "The experienced prop-forward played in five Challenge Cup finals, captained England, won nine Great Britain caps and toured in 1979, but unfortunately he chose to play only 15 matches for the Roughyeds before walking out."

It wouldn't happen today. But there again Oldham wouldn't get £2,000 in a transfer fee. Times DO change — and they have certainly changed in rugby league since Locky was around.

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