'Yeds' make new French connection

Photo: Dave Murgatroyd

HERE we go . . . Oldham fans and Roary the mascot cheer on the team at the match in Toulouse

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THEY came, they saw, they returned home wearing Oldham-coloured berets and clutching bags of duty free cheese and wine.

Among the party of what must have been more than 100 fans to make the pilgrimage to Toulouse - Oldham RL's first foreign trip since the Super League days - was 85-year-old Vera Hough.

"I've been watching Oldham for 83 years," said Vera in the city centre hotel where there was also a kids' rugby union team staying.

The youngsters from the south were thrilled to have accompanied Oldham out on to the pitch at Stade Ernest Argeles In Blagnac, the slightly rough-around-its-edges home of Toulouse Olympique.

Oddly, there was no wine on sale inside the ground (beer only as far as alcohol goes) but the sense of bonhomie was in no way inhibited.

Roary the Roughyed (also known as Nathan) made the trip and orchestrated some impressive and unmistakably non-French singing, amid the odd blast from a Gallic brass band during the game.

After giving Oldham a tough time on the pitch, smiling Toulouse players came across to the perimeter at full-time to shake hands with the many supporters who had made the trip.

Some had suffered delays getting to Toulouse from Birmingham Airport, while the 14-strong group on the official club trip got on at Stanstead to make their journey to the south of France.

The language barrier came into play occasionally on Oldham's first French trip since the Bears went to Paris in 1997.

But in a beautiful, historic city - the fourth-biggest in France and the home of the hearty and seriously filling duck and bean stew known as cassoulet - the only red faces on show on Saturday evening around the packed restaurants and bars of Place Victor Hugo were a result not of embarrassment but a lack of sunblock.

Another overseas club is making trans-Atlantic waves in the division below Oldham. This time next year, Roary and Co might be doing their thing in Toronto.