The Oldham RL Heritage Trust were sad to hear the news that former club chairman Ray Hatton had passed away in Australia. Please find below an appraisal of Ray’s time at Oldham RLFC by Roger Halstead.
The death in Perth, West Australia, of former club chairman Ray Hatton, at the age of 93, will come as a shock to the many people in Oldham who remember him as the man who was in charge at the time of the great scratchcard boom when the club became famous for its money-making venture and signed the likes of Terry Flanagan, Ray Ashton, Andy Goodway and Mick Worrall on the back of it.
They were among the best kids around and they went from unknown boys to fully-fledged internationals and Great Britain tourists in next to no time — all down to the money raised on the famous scratchcards.
They were the days of town-centre booths, of long lines of people hoping to win a fortune, of cash swelling the Watersheddings coffers — and of Ray Hatton, the boy from Limeside, who became the man of the moment as chairman of Oldham RLFC with a rags-to-riches story to tell in the bargain.
“He was a great guy — a revolutionary. A man who knew where he wanted to take the club, and what he needed to do to take it there..” said John Chadwick, who worked alongside him at the club, went with him to Hull to sign Brian Lockwood and Clive Sullivan, and who affirms what we all say: Rest In Peace, Raymond, you ran the race, won the race, and Oldham RLFC was all the better for your input.
My personal memories of Ray Hatton are numerous. He was a prominent member of the infamous ginger group that swept all before it at the annual members’ election of 1970 after Oldham had finished 29th out of 30 clubs in a single-division set-up called the Northern Rugby League in 1969-70. Only Blackpool Borough finished lower than Oldham, the club’s worst position since the formation of the Northern Union in 1895. Huyton were above us, Oldham losing 28 of their 34 games. Members were shocked and saddened. They demanded change and got it with nine knew committee men, a new chairman in Arthur Walker, a new coach in Graham Starkey, a new pools organiser — and lots of new ideas.
Progress was steady, with the Roughyeds climbing from 29th to 16th, to 13th, to 9th in Starkey’s first three years, but it wasn’t fast enough bearing in mind the promises made by the new men and in early 1972, the Oldham Evening Chronicle headlined my story: “A trip to the moon that ended at Mumps.”
What I didn’t know, of course, was that the great Frank Foster was on his way from Barrow and with Foster organising the forwards and that magnificent ball handler Cliff Hill looking after the backs, with Starkey in overall control, Oldham had a great run and found themselves in the First Division when the 30 clubs were split into two in 1973/74.
From memory, Ray Hatton was Arthur Walker’s vice-chairman in those early days of the ginger group. It was certainly Ray who took me on one side after my “trip to the moon that ended at Mumps” story, admonished me, and pointed out that if I wanted the club to do right by me, then I had to do right by the club. He was right, of course. He never once mentioned that hiccup again and we became firm friends, especially so when he was club chairman from 1977 to 1983.
Under Ray’s leadership, Starkey returned to the club for a second spell as team manager, the lottery went through the roof, Brian Gartland and Derek Foy came in to oversee a youth policy and the famous colts were formed in season 79-80. In his book, ‘ Roughyeds – The Story’, Brian Walker wrote: “For years boys with potential had been going out of town to play the pro game, but now the traffic was coming in the opposite direction.”
Havn’t we heard that before somewhere? Locally, we got Terry Flanagan, Paddy Kirwan. Pasquale D’Adamo, and Joe Warburton, but from further afield came Ray Ashton, Mike Cowley, Les Cook, Alan Platt, Mick Coombes, John Walls, Steve Littler, Andy Goodway and Mick Worrall.
Another Oldhamer, Des Foy, came in from Widnes, and as the likes of Flanagan, Kirwan, Ashton, Foy, Goodway and Worrall hit the big time, Oldham won the Colts Cup, won the Second Division Championship in 81-82 and in the following year, with Ray as chairman, finished eighth in the First Division — their best year since 1960-61.
Eventually, Ray Hatton left the club, settled in Perth, West Australia, via Portugal, but never forgot his Watersheddings days or the many friends he made in Rugby League. In 2001, he and his wife, Janet, met up with me in Queensland. I told him my youngest boy David, an Oldham mascot in his youth, was in New Zealand and later the Hattons dropped in on him to talk about the Roughyeds.
That was typical of Ray Hatton — a man we will NEVER forget.
The club’s former commercial manager Ray Hill is currently away in Australia and has kindly offered to hand out Heritage Certificates as he renews acquaintances with some of our former players.
Ray has been in Canberra and Sydney where he presented certificates to former Roughyeds Gary Warnecke and Chris O’Sullivan.
ABOVE: Ray hands Gary Warnecke his Heritage Certificate in Sydney and meets up with Chris O’Sullivan in Canberra. BELOW: Gary and Chris in their Oldham playing days.
There will be further updates from Ray in the coming weeks.
The annual ‘Players Association’ dinner was held at St Herbert’s Parish room in Chadderton on Friday November 1st when approximately 200 people sat down for an enjoyable meal and entertainment from comedian Lee Roberts and guest speaker Dr. Kevin Jones with popular MC Pete Emmett.
The evening began with John Chadwick reading a list of ex-players who had died during the last twelve months with a toast to “absent friends”.
Heritage Certificates were handed out on the night to: Tony Wainwright, Bob Marsden, Richard Russell and Leo Casey. There was also a certificate presentation to the son of the late John Fairbank and also the son-in-law of Jack Keith (John Walker) who brought with him Jack’s impressive collection of medals including his Championship winners medal from 1956-57 and the three Lancashire Cup winners medals from 1956-57-58.
The Oldham Rugby League Heritage Trust was saddened to learn of the death of ex-Roughyed, Brian Lockwood (Heritage Number 845) aged 78.
Although he only played 15 times for Oldham in the 1980-81 season, he left a lasting memory of “what might have been”, had the club been able to hang on to his services for a longer period.
Originally a second-row who later switched to prop, he began his career at local club Castleford and was in the team that won the RL Challenge Cup in 1969 & 1970. He was part of the 1972 World Cup winning team before spending time is Australia at Canterbury-Bankstown and Balmain. He then has a spell at Wakefield before being snapped up by Hull KR and during his time with the ‘Robins’ he was voted the ‘man of the match‘ as Great Britain beat Australia at Odsal in 1978 and won the Lance Todd Trophy in the all Humberside cup final of 1980. He then had his brief spell at Oldham before going on to more glories at Widnes picking up another Challenge Cup winners medal in 1981 against his former club HKR and a runners-up medal the following year against Hull FC.
The condolences of the Oldham RL Heritage Trust go out to all of Brian’s family and friends.
The Oldham RL Heritage Trust was saddened to learn via the Rugby League Journal that the former Roughyed, John Cheshire (Heritage Number 656) had died on September 4th aged 91
John was born in South Wales, from where he was picked up by Salford in 1955, signing from his local club Cross Keys. He stayed with the Red Devils until 1963 when he transferred to Oldham. A centre three-quarter, he made ten appearances for the Roughyeds all of them in 1963.
The sincere condolences of the Oldham RL Heritage Trust go out to all of John’s family and friends.
The close of the successful 2024 season brought due recognition for the forwards when Jay Chapelhow and Pat Moran were the recipients of the July and August ‘Brian Walker Award’.
Jay went in for surgery on a wrist injury which ended his season after the Midlands match at Boundary Park on August 4th but he had already got the nod for the July award after a tremendous first season in Oldham’s colours. His award cheque was donated to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital Trust.
Left: Jay Chapelhow Right: Pat Moran receives the cheque from Mike Ford and Brian’s son, Adrian Walker.
Pat Moran became the first player to win the award twice after already picking up the the honour in June 2023. After missing some of the early part of the season through injury, Pat has played consistently well since coming back into the team in mid-June in the Roughyeds march to be champions and gain promotion. Pat’s donation went to the St Rocco’s hospice.
The 2024 season has proved to be a remarkable success story for the club and congratulations are in order to Bill Quinn, Mike Ford and everyone who has contributed to the wonderful 2024 campaign. Not least of these are Sean Long and the Oldham players who finished clear leaders of League One to become deserved champions therefore gaining promotion to the Championship for 2025.
The Players, directors and coaching staff celebrate as Jordan Turner holds aloft the League One trophy.
So well done to the Board of Directors, the players, staff and the fantastic supporters, especially those who have stuck with it through thick and thin and now have real hope for the future of their beloved ‘Roughyeds’.
Some of the stand-out facts for the season are listed below
There was only one league defeat which is the best ever in the history of the club but you have to keep in mind that there was only 20 league matches. The next best are:
1897-98 – 2 league defeats (26 matches).
1907-08 – 2 league defeats (32 matches).
1981-82 – 2 league defeats (32 matches).
Much of the success was built on a miserly and resolute defence that kept seven clean sheets, the most times our opponents were ‘nilled’ since the 1910-11 season. This included four consecutive home ‘shut-outs’ at the end of the season, the best since 1905-06.
Cian Tyrer’s 29 tries is the best in a season since Paul Lord got the same number in 1989-90 and Geoff Munro in 1979-80 but if you include the one Cian scored on loan at Workington you have to go back to 1959-60 when Ike Southward scored 31.
Roughyeds try scoring aces – Cian Tyrer, Paul Lord, Geoff Munro and Ike Southward.
This has only been achieved twice before in 2004 and the championship winning season of 1956-57.
What is more remarkable about the 2024 effort is that all three players only played part of the season.
The attendance (2,681) for the final match of the season against Workington Town on September 1st was the highest since the 2,806 watched the game against Doncaster on July 17th 2008. The average attendance, including the home friendly against London Broncos, is 1,579 more than double that of 2023 (741).
The Heritage Trust were sad to learn the news that ex-roughyed Reg Bailey (Heritage number 600) passed away at the grand old age of 94.
Reg was signed from the local Lowermoor club in 1952 and made two first team appearances for Oldham, one of these being a try scoring debut against Liverpool City on March 2nd 1957 as the team went on to be league champions.
He then signed for Rochdale at the start of the 1957-58 season. Reg went on to play a total of 67 games for the Hornets scoring 7 tries and was a member of the side that came within a whisker of reaching the 1958 Challenge Cup final after going down to Wigan 5 – 3 in the semi-final. The condolences of everyone at the Oldham RL Heritage Trust go out to all of Reg’s family and friends.
The club record for ‘points in a match’ was broken on Sunday August 11th in the 84 – 0 victory over Newcastle when newly signed wingman Kieran Dixon scored 3 tries and 12 goals to register 36 points.
This supersedes the 34 which was shared by Andy Ballard, Chris Baines and Lewis Palfrey. Andy got the record first in May 2009 with Chris equalling it four months later. Then Lewis also got that total in August 2015.
Kieran Dixon (left) and Cian Tyrer in action against Newcastle. (Photos Dave Murgatroyd)
Also, in the same match, the five tries scored by Cian Tyrer took his total for Oldham this season to 27, which is the best haul this century surpassing the 25 touchdowns scored by Nick Johnson in 2004.
The Heritage Trust are sad to report the death of former Oldham player Terry Garrett (Heritage Number 725).
A talented, goal-kicking centre, Terry had played for the local St Anne’s club before turning professional with the Roughyeds and was briefly on the books at Oldham Athletic.
He made his debut on Boxing Day 1969 at Swinton and went on to play 42 first team matches for Oldham scoring seven tries and 100 goals.
The sincere condolences of the Oldham Rugby League Heritage Trust are offered to all of Terry’s family and friends.
