100 (years) up for record breaker Reg
Reg Farrar set the Oldham tries in a season record in 1921-22 registering his 49th touchdown in the “Top-Four” play off win over Huddersfield at Watersheddings on April 22nd 1922. The Roughyeds won 13 – 5 with Reg scoring two tries and two goals.
Reg signed for Oldham from the Halifax Old Boys Rugby Union club, playing his first match against Huddersfield on October 23rd, 1920. He set the trend on his debut by scoring the only try in a 5 – 5 draw against the “Fartowners”. He was selected at centre that day and also for the next few games, but it would be on the wing that he would make his mark. His determined running was supplemented by an ability to leap over would-be tacklers. The following season Reg was installed on the left wing to great effect and his record breaking 49 touchdowns were complemented by 33 goals which meant he topped the Oldham tries and goals list. The club finished at the top of the league table but missed out on the Championship title when losing to Wigan in the Championship final two weeks after Reg had scored his brace against Huddersfield in the “Top-Four” play off.
The rest of his career was greatly disrupted by injury and the next two seasons saw him making only 13 senior appearances. When Jack Corsi was injured early in 1925, Reg was selected to take his place and returned to his old form, helping the club to win through to the Challenge Cup Final. Corsi returned to fitness just in time for the final and this left the committee with a selection dilemma. They chose to keep Farrar and Corsi on the wings and switch Sid Rix to centre, to the exclusion of the unfortunate Albert Woodward. The decision, however, proved to be well founded with Reg being the hero of the final, scoring one try, making two others and kicking two goals from the touchline in the 16 – 3 victory over Hull K.R. at Headingley.
More injuries followed and it looked like his career was over, but after almost two and half years out of the game he made a comeback in 1929, showing the same old style by scoring twelve tries in ten games at the end of the 1928-29 season.
Reg finally called it a day in 1930. Amazingly his career ended exactly as it had begun with him scoring the only Oldham try in a 5- 5 draw ! This time the match was against Leigh at Watersheddings on September 6th, 1930.