'New' season ticket for 1895-96 campaign

THE season ticket found by workmen in the old Oldham Gallery, from left, to right, Billy Ellis, Stuart Marland, Ryan Hughes and Sean Baggaley (Gallery Oldham)

A GROUP of workmen made a rare find while carrying out renovation work on Oldham Library.

The excavators, from D Hughes Demolition, found an Oldham 1895-96 season ticket for the inaugural Northern Rugby Football Union campaign as they were clearing out the library.

They found it underneath a book case which had been built into the wall as they stripped the room.

While the writing is difficult to read, it appears to belong to a Mr S Boardman.

After finding the season ticket, which was perfectly preserved, they handed it over to the curator at Oldham Gallery Sean Baggaley.

Stuart Marland, who made the discovery along with Billy Ellis and Ryan Hughes, said: "We were excavating the library and just came across it and we thought it should be on show somewhere.

"It has been well protected, there was a book shelf built into one of the walls and it must have fallen down behind it and we found it underneath when we removed it. We thought it would be a shame to keep it to one side so gave it to the curator."

Mr Baggaley said: "We are really pleased. We thought we handed that building over stripped out and this is a fantastic find. It is interesting, it could have been thrown away by the owner, it could have been a really rubbish season. It is really good of the builders it is brilliant that they had the eagle eye to spot it and recognise it was important."