Home comfort for Oldham

OLDHAM Roughyeds WILL have a permanent home at Boundary Park next season.

In previous years, pitch repair work at the ground in the football off-season has forced the club to decamp to Sedgley Park RUFC and other venues outside of the town.

But for the 2009 Co-operative Championship One campaign, fixtures against Blackpool and London Skolars have been switched in order to work around that problem.

“We would like to thank Blackpool and London Skolars for their co-operation,” said Roughyeds chief executive Chris Hamilton.

“Otherwise, we would have had to play those two matches away from Boundary Park, though we understand it isn’t the RFL’s fault as it is almost impossible to make allowances for every club.

“The blank weekends in the season gave us a lot of flexibility and we are very pleased.”

The home games against Blackpool and London will now take place on Sunday, March 15 and Sunday, August 9, respectively.

Oldham open up with a home match on Sunday, February 8, in the revised first stage of the Northern Rail Cup against crisis club Rochdale Hornets, who are to hold an emergency shareholders’ meeting tonight at Spotland following the double resignation of chairman Martin Shenton and vice-chairman Karen Reynolds last week.

A Friday night away trip to Co-operative Championship side Widnes Vikings is next up , with other NRC pool matches pitting Oldham against Sheffield Eagles (home) and Hunslet Hawks (away).

The Roughyeds’ Co-operative Championship One season starts with the Blackpool home game, a week earlier than the rest of the division because of the switch.

Other fixtures of note include a tough Easter double-header away at Rochdale on Good Friday and at home to Dewsbury on Easter Monday.

Two teams will gain promotion to the Co-operative Championship, one going up automatically and the other at the culmination of a play-off campaign.

Meanwhile, former Oldham forward Wes Rogers has been confirmed as Paul Kidd’s new assistant coach at Swinton Lions.