Former British Lion Malcolm, who also starred for Oldham, dies aged 86

Malcolm played for three rugby league clubs, including Oldham

Malcolm Price, one of the few players ever to double-up as a British Lion at rugby union and as a Great Britain rugby league centre, has died at the age of 86.

Malcolm played for three rugby league clubs, namely Oldham, mainly Rochdale Hornets, and Salford.

A classy centre, who was once described by the then Hornets coach Johnny Noon, himself a former Oldham centre of some repute, as one of the two best centres he had ever known (the other was Alan Davies), Malcolm turned pro for Oldham from Welsh RU in 1961, but he suffered an horrific pancreas injury at Rochdale which was life-threatening, required emergency surgery and caused him to  have a long stay in intensive care in a Manchester hospital.

There were fears he might never play again, but he defied the forecasts, made his comeback in the Oldham ‘A’ team and, ironically, transferred to Rochdale where he spent most of his glittering career.

He was a Rochdale player when he was picked for Great Britain in 1967, appearing against the Australians at Swinton some nine years or so after he had toured Australia and New Zealand as a 21-year-old British RU Lion.

John Chadwick, a former Oldham chairman, said: “I think from memory we paid a record fee for a Rugby Union convert when we first brought him north.

"He used to tell me his street in Newport was so often filled with big cars that that his pending move north became quite a topic of local conversation.

"He played for Wales nine times, and he went on to represent the British Lions but as far as we were concerned, the highlight of a wonderful player’s rugby career was when he signed for Oldham.”

A proud Welshman, Price once famously said: “Rugby is an ordinary game and Welshmen are ordinary men.  

"We play rugby, retire, and then watch rugby.”

In later years, he was a proud and active member of the Hornets Ex-Players’ Association; he won the Rochdale individual men’s badminton title when in his 60s; he became curator of the Toad Lane Museum in Rochdale (birthplace of the Co-operative movement) and, for a time, he was president of Littleborough ARLFC in the Pennine League.

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