Staying put

TOUCH AND GO: Gareth Barber’s team (orange bibs), the eventual champions, take on a Jack Taylor team in the Oldham club’s touch rugby competition.

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RUGBY UNION:

Club’s bid to cut down on travel costs set to fail

OLDHAM RUFC’S attempts to reduce travel costs next season appear to have fallen through.

After managing to hold onto their North Lancs/Cumbria division status, the Manor Park club have applied to join the South Lancashire/Cheshire division, purely as a result of having to face so many long journeys into Cumbria.

Oldham’s longest round-trip measures almost 300 miles to Workington.

But it is almost certain that Oldham will stay put for now.

Ideally, they would like to see a restructure of the league system at level seven in the North-West, with separate competitions for Lancashire, Cheshire and Cumbria clubs.

The make up of next season’s North Lancs/Cumbria division is —

Oldham, Eccles, Tough H Didsbury, Heaton Moor, De La Salle, Fleetwood, Blackburn, Upper Eden, Furness, St Benedicts, Workington, Keswick, Aspatria.

Meanwhile, a Gareth Barber team won the Oldham club’s touch rugby competition, while Broughton Park picked up the Stuart Woodhead Trophy after victory in the veterans’ section.



OLDHAM marked a satisfactory season at their annual awards night.

Despite fielding a total of 49 different players, the first team avoided relegation and the third team picked up the Steve Ransom Trophy as the Miller Homes League team of the year — a competition in which there were 200 participating clubs.

And the under-14s became county champions after beating Ashton-under-Lyne in the final of the Blacksticks Blue Lancashire Bowl.

Alan Pierre was rewarded for an excellent season in the pack for the first team and landed two individual honours, the Kershaw trophy and the William Fox trophy, as player of the year and players’ player of the year respectively.

Mark Goodman picked up the Terry Hurst Trophy as young player of the year, while Steve Fox won the worker-of-the-year award for a third time and Geoff Heptonstall the President’s Choice for his outstanding service to the club.

Chris McKenzie was the captain’s player of the year for the first team, with Matty Collins (second team), Gary Phelan (third team) and Dominic Hall (fourth team/vets) honoured by their respective skippers.