Oldham scrap second team

Date published: 25 February 2015


OLDHAM RL Club has decided to jettison its second team.

The club was one of only two third-tier clubs with a team in last season’s Championships under-20s league, but faced increased expenditure in retaining the bulk of last season’s senior squad..

“It had to be done, purely for financial reasons,” said chairman Chris Hamilton.

Roughyeds will kick-off the 2015 season at Whitebank on Sunday with a squad of 20 players, seven of whom have come through the reserves.

Hamilton said: “We have a proud record in terms of developing our own players and we pursued that home-grown policy for as long as we were able.

“I’ve been banging the drum for a few years for clubs with second teams to have their initiative reflected in their central funding, which would have helped with the costs. It never happened, and to make things even more difficult we’ve had constantly-changing age limits.

“On top of that, we’ve had to invest heavily in the first team because a number of our players attracted attention from other clubs. That inevitably raised the bar on contracts.”