by MATTHEW CHAMBERS

SEDGLEY Park will once again form a temporary home for Oldham when they vacate Boundary Park for two months.

After this Sunday’s match against Swinton Lions, the usual home ground for the Roughyeds is out of commission due to work being carried out on the playing surface in the football off-season.

It means that the National League Two matches against London Skolars and Gateshead Thunder will both take place at the Whitefield venue, which has been used in similar circumstances by the club over the past three seasons.

That London game, though, has been brought forward a day to Saturday, June 7 (6pm kick-off), due to Swinton already having a fixture scheduled at the ground the following afternoon.

The Gateshead match stays at Sunday, June 29 (3pm).

Meanwhile, the game away at London Skolars which should have taken place last weekend — it didn’t go ahead due to clashing with Oldham’s Challenge Cup fifth-round tie against Dewsbury — has been moved to the midweek berth of Wednesday, June 18 (7.30pm).

Add that to the midweek match two weeks earlier at Gateshead on Wednesday, June 4 (7.30pm), a rearranged fixture at Doncaster that hasn’t yet been given a date, and the potential for another fixture rejigging should the Roughyeds get past Batley to reach the Northern Rail Cup semi-finals, and it is clear that this is a busy time administration-wise for club officials.

As far as the playing side of things goes, the hope is that the congested month of June won’t have an adverse effect on promotion chances.

“While it isn’t ideal, it is a sign of the club’s success so in that sense it is a problem we are happy to deal with,” said chief executive Chris Hamilton.

Tickets for the Challenge Cup quarter-final at Wakefield will be available tomorrow from the club shop.


     

HULL are expected to be handed a heavy fine after they avoided being thrown out of the Carnegie Challenge Cup on a technicality.

Prop forward Jamie Thackray, who joined Hull for a second time from Leeds on March 27 — more than three weeks after the initial cup deadline — played in both the next two rounds but the matter only came to light after his side’s 32–18 win over Widnes last Sunday.

The RFL’s board of directors, claim they regard the breach as a “very serious matter” but stopped short of throwing Hull out of the competition because it is not in the rules.     

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