Roughyeds in hunt for home

Chris Hamilton

ROUGHYEDS owner Chris Hamilton will hold talks with Oldham Athletic managing director Simon Corney to clarify the football club’s position regarding a ground-sharing arrangement.

The current agreement which allowed the rugby club to share Boundary Park expired at the end of last season, on the understanding that further talks would take place with regard to 2010.

The two parties have yet to meet on the issue up to this point, but the matter will be settled one way or the other when the two bosses convene tomorrow and it could be that the Roughyeds are once again on the hunt for a new home.

Boundary Park has hosted regular rugby league every season since 2002, when a dispute led to the Roughyeds playing out of Hurst Cross in Ashton-under-Lyne.

Sedgley Park RUFC, in Whitefield, provided a temporary home for the Roughyeds for four years from 2005 while pitch repair work was carried out in the football off-season at Boundary Park.

However, Oldham’s Co-operative Championship One rivals Swinton Lions already use the facility.

The Oldham RL club has been without a permanent venue to call ‘home’ since the demise of Watersheddings.

On the playing front, coach Tony Benson will now hold his first pre-season training session on Monday, November 23 — a week later than was originally planned.

The now-resolved ownership saga behind the scenes at the club has led to a delay putting a squad for the 2010 season together and no players have yet signed for next season, though that is a situation which is expected to change in the near future.

“Though not ideal, holding training back isn’t a major problem for us either,” said Hamilton.

“Having reached the play-off final we didn’t finish playing until later than the other sides in our division, so another week won’t hurt too much.”