Oldham over rough patch

POSITIVE APPROACH . . . Tony Benson is convinced his Roughyeds team can put aside the club’s off-the-field problems

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Players ready to show their mettle – boss

ROUGHYEDS coach Tony Benson admits the difficulties behind the scenes at the club have arrived at a bad time — but also says that a corner is being turned.

Results on the pitch have slumped lately, coinciding with the well-documented period of uncertainty in which owner Bill Quinn put his shares of the club up for sale.

Last week, four of the club's most capable players left for Barrow, Mark Cass was sacked on the eve of the game and the weakened side Benson was forced to field at Dewsbury went down to a 38-8 defeat which now has Oldham lying fourth in Co-operative Championship One.

That represented a fifth loss of the league campaign and a fourth in the last five in all competitions.

However, as with the narrow home defeat to Keighley the previous week, the signs were there that the players have the fire in their bellies to overcome such adversity.

More of the same will be required at Boundary Park on Sunday as Hornets RL — who themselves had huge difficulties in the close season — come visiting, on the back of a 24-22 home win over Swinton which leaves them just outside the play-offs in eighth.

"The situation has certainly pulled us together and we are tighter as a team," said Benson.

"Rochdale have had their own troubles and I was talking to their coach Darren Shaw, who said he was just glad that theirs happened in the off-season.

"It gave them the chance to build and they have got to a reasonable point now.

“For us, it is like having our legs kicked out from underneath us and I suppose and we are now just getting back up again.

"We will be better for last week and I expect we will have more cohesion, which will hopefully lead to us putting some points on the board."

Oldham have won their last five games against the Rochdale club. The last time the teams met, Oldham ran out 26-18 winners at Spotland despite being 12-10 down at half-time, with a try just before half-time from Lee Greenwood and another nine minutes into the second period from Stevie Gibbons helping to turn the game around.

The Roughyeds tasted defeat in a Northern Rail Cup tie at Spotland last year, a 32-22 reverse being the only defeat inflicted by the team's near neighbours since they were relegated from National League One.


FANS will give a big Roughyeds welcome at Boundary Park on Sunday to the many former players of the club who will be introduced to the crowd at half-time.

Members of the Players' Association, which continues to go from strength to strength, will be there in numbers, headed by their president, Phil Woolas MP, their chairman Martin Murphy, and one of their life members, Joe Warham.

Now in his eighties, he has an association with both clubs, having played at Oldham in the late 1940s and early 1950s and later becoming player-coach and manager of Rochdale Hornets.

In addition to the many locally-based former Watersheddings men who will be at the game there will be several who will travel to take part in the reunion — men like Joe Warham, Bob Mordell, Cliff Hill, Ian Taylor, Brian Lord and Jimmy Reynolds.

The Rochdale party will include ex-Oldham player and coach Graham Starkey; two who played for both clubs, Johnnie Hammond and Norman Brelsford; and other Oldham-born Hornets such as Mick Crocker, David Taylor and Steve McGiffen.

About 50 ex-players in total will be entertained in the Corner Flag suite.

As man-of-the-match sponsors, they have allocated the six places they get in the other hospitality suite as part of the sponsorship package to two apiece to representatives of local amateur clubs Saddleworth, Waterhead and St Anne's.

This is a thank-you to the amateurs for allowing the Players' Association to use their social facilities for their monthly meetings.