All eyes turn to Boundary Park in Oldham Bower Fold in Stalybridge this afternoon for the Challenge Cup second round tie between Oldham and Orrell.
Yeah, you read that right: Stalybridge.
It’s been an odd eight or nine days for Oldham RLFC. Out of the blue an announcement came from the club that the upcoming challenge cup tie would be played “…at Bower Fold the home of Stalybridge Celtic, with Boundary Park unavailable.” No other explanation was given leading to much angst on social media.
The rugby club was stoney silent for a while before Love Rugby League broke the story late in the week.
The club Chairman Bill Quinn is seemingly banned from Boundary Park for the next 12 months following an alleged incident at the football ground. Accusations and denials are being bandied around with possible legal proceedings ahead.
The twonks who set-up the current Oldham website didn’t take any time to consider permalinks. So all news items fall under /news/.
So that means that if you have posts with the same title, like “Club Statement, you end up with a -2 or -3 on the end of the post slug. Easily fixable but it won’t happen.
Doh!
The club are precluded from using Boundary Park until differences are resolved
Anyway, the net result is that Bower Fold will once again host an Oldham fixture with maybe more to come if Latics and Roughyeds can’t get their shit together. It’s a nice ground and you’re close to the action but you know, it’s not in Oldham.
Given the opposition and probable comfortable win for the home side, I can’t see the crowd being too big.
Squads #
Oldham put out their usual squad announcement graphic on Friday. It follows the same design as the one for last week’s Salford game but since Oldham are at “home”, it’s red.
On-loan forward Harvey Makin is looking all gladiatorial and the simpler Orrell club crest works better than the Oldham hotchpotch crest with a missing shield. (Note to self, I should do a post about that bloody crest.).
I couldn’t find an Orrell graphical announcement so it’s just the Oldham one below.
Oldham are running with a twenty-five man squad this year so missing from that twenty-one are Emmanuelle Waine, Iain Thornley, Matty Russell and Adam Milner. Three from injury and one rested.
The Game #
I’d imagine that Geener and Littler will get some gametime and Jack Walker will make his Oldham debut.
I watched Orrell’s round one win over Oldham St Annes over on YouTube. Orrell were definitely the better side on the day but they should succumb to the bigger firepower in the Oldham ranks.
Nothing more than a comprehensive victory will do for Oldham and they’ll be aiming to nil the opposition. I reckon Oldham will go past 50 and at that point I think most people will be hoping for an Orrell score. Lets’s see.
If Dewsbury Rams defeat their community opposition today, they will await the winners in two week’s time — more than likely in Stalybridge.
What a shit-show.
Blast from the past #
I went looking for an image of Bower Fold on my computer. I took the one in the header back in 2021 when fans were still prevented from attending games because Covid.
As I searched around I came across a graphic I’d produced for a 2016 game against Sheffield. I think the Eagles coach had described Oldham as having a bit of dog in them. So I played around…
Hah!
I’ll be watching the Waterhead v Rochdale Hornets game today on The Sportsman before tuning in to listen to the Oldham game later in the afternoon. Matt Horton is in the hot seat for that one with George Riley missing for the second game running. Hmmmmmm!
The game ended up at Oldham 58 Orrell 0. The crowd was 671