A new documentary telling the stories of Oldham rugby league’s Hall of Fame members is to be released.
It’s being produced by BBC reporter and former Roughyeds player, Kevin Fitzpatrick, and will focus on the careers of the 22 players considered among the best in the club’s nearly 150 year history, as well as the memorable team moments they were involved in.
The players range from Arthur Lees and Joe Ferguson who played from the late 1800s up to John Hough who was the first signing for the reformed club in 1997.
The audio documentary will be downloadable and feature interviews with all the living Hall of Famers as well as Alan Davies, Bernard Ganley, John Etty and Frank Stirrup from the legendary team of the 1950s.
These interviews were part of an earlier project about the first ten members of the Hall of Fame in 2002.
Kevin, who recently joined the Oldham Rugby League Heritage Trust, said; “It’s been a privilege talking to the Oldham players who had such an impact on the team and the fans. I’m trying to discover what made them the players they were and capture their memories of the ups and downs during their time with the club.”
The documentary will also feature teammates, rugby league historians and relatives of older players who are no longer with us.
A launch event is being planned for the Broadway Suite at Boundary Park on Friday 28th March with tickets available in due course.

Oldham retained the Law Cup after a mighty struggle against Rochdale Hornets which saw them winners 16 – 14 in the rearranged match at Boundary Park on Wednesday January 22nd. After Oldham had gone into a ten points to nil lead, Hornets hit back to leave the home supporters much relieved to hear the final hooter with the Roughyeds only two points to the good. In the absence of regular skipper Jordan Turner, it was Pat Moran who had the honour to lead the team out and lift the cup.

Owen Farnworth was a worthy winner of the Heritage Trust Trophy with a typical non-stop performance. He was run close by several of his team-mates but his all round effort in defence and the ability to make the extra yards after impact swung the vote in his favour. A good example of this was the ‘drive’ into the Rochdale defence just prior to Kieran Dixon’s try which proved to be the match winner.

Phil Larder and Mike Ford were presented with their ‘Hall of Fame’ certificates at a brief ceremony in the Broadway suite before the match against Wigan at Boundary Park last Sunday, January 19th.

Phil (Heritage Number 705) and Mike (HN 934) received their certificates from club vice-president, John Chadwick and both spoke fondly about their time with the Roughyeds.

2nd January 2025

The Heritage Trust were saddened to learn of the death of former Roughyed, Ken Gwilliam (Heritage Number 838), who passed away on January 2nd aged 77. St Helens born, Ken began his rugby league career with Blackbrook before signing for Salford in 1967 and was the youngest member of the team that lost to Castleford in the 1970 Challenge Cup Final when he played at full-back.

He signed for his hometown club in 1974 and made 151 appearances for St Helens before making the move to Watersheddings in 1979. He made his Oldham debut on November 11th in a narrow 6 – 5 victory over Barrow. All of Ken’s matches for Oldham were in the scrum-half position. He made a total of 33 appearances for the Roughyeds scoring six tries and a drop goal.

The sincere condolences of everyone connected with Oldham RLFC goes out to all of Ken’s family and friends.

Ray Hill has continued his trek ‘Down Under’ as far as New Zealand where he met up with Roughyeds’ legend Charlie McAlister in Auckland. Ray presented Charlie with his Heritage certificate during a week-long stay and they took the opportunity to have lunch with the former Wigan star, Frano Botica.

Ray will be homeward bound soon with, no doubt, many stories to tell of his adventures in Australia and New Zealand and his meetings with the Roughyeds stars of yesteryear.