Roughyeds add to sponsors list

OLDHAM Roughyeds have added another company to their sponsorship partners list in the shape of Mark Bates and Sons of Middleton Junction, manufacturers and suppliers of quality ready-mix concrete.

The firm’s logo will be worn on the shirts of the Oldham players in what promises to be an exciting Co-operative Championship One season.

“Our sport demands that players are tough and unyielding, so there’s something very appropriate in seeing the Oldham boys sponsored by a firm that specialises in concrete,” said the club’s commercial manager Rachael Marsters.

“It’s the first time Mark Bates and Sons have been associated with rugby league and we are delighted to welcome them as sponsorship partners alongside several others, local, regional and national.”

Mark Bates, owner of the 20-year-old family business, is a football fan, a former Rochdale AFC apprentice and an ex-player at semi-professional level, but he also appreciates that rugby league players are involved in one of the hardest sports in existence.

“I went to my first rugby league game when Oldham played Sheffield Eagles recently in the Northern Rail Cup,” he said, “and I was staggered to see part-time professionals who had done a day’s work first playing with so much intensity and so much physicality.

“I wasn’t sure of the rules or of the finer points of play, but I was guided through it by Chris Hamilton (the club chairman). I soon got the gist of it and I found it gripping stuff to watch.”

Oldham’s next game is on Good Friday, April 2, when the team travels the short distance to take on Hornets RL at Spotland (3pm kick-off).


BLACKPOOL have signed former Roughyeds centre Danny Halliwell from Barrow in a deal which runs up to the end of the season.