At the end of the second season of the “Northern Union”, Oldham played a friendly match against the local Crompton club and took the opportunity to give a trial to a young threequarter from Northampton. The player scored two tries in the 25 – 0 victory and was immediately signed up for the following season. The player was Sam Williams, who had played at centre in the trial, a position that he also filled for most of his eighteen appearances in the following 1897-98 season. It was however, on the wing that he excelled after being switched to the flank for the 1898-99 campaign.
He topped the try list for the whole of the Northern Union on three consecutive occasions 1898-99 /1899-1900/1900-1901. For the first two of these he was followed on the list by team mate Tom Davies. In these three phenomenal years, Sam scored 104 tries in just 88 appearances and his final figures of 119 touchdowns in 132 games represents one of the best tries to appearances ratio in the history of the club.
Press reports of the time would talk about his “corkscrew” runs as he weaved inside and outside of the opponents’ defensive line. In the successful Challenge Cup run of 1899, Sam scored 14 tries in the competition including five in the first round against Goole and two in the final itself, when Hunslet were defeated 19 – 9 at Fallowfield. Considering that Sam played in an era when tries were much less in evidence than in subsequent years, his consistency in crossing the “whitewash” is seen as all the more remarkable. Arguably the first “Superstar” of the professional game, Sam Williams is unquestionably Oldham’s most lethal ever wing man.
Player profile
At the end of the second season of the “Northern Union”, Oldham played a friendly match against the local Crompton club and took the opportunity to give a trial to a young threequarter from Northampton. The player scored two tries in the 25 – 0 victory and was immediately signed up for the following season. The player was Sam Williams, who had played at centre in the trial, a position that he also filled for most of his eighteen appearances in the following 1897-98 season.
It was however, on the wing that he excelled after being switched to the flank for the 1898-99 campaign.
He topped the try list for the whole of the Northern Union on three consecutive occasions 1898-99 /1899-1900/1900-1901. For the first two of these he was followed on the list by team mate Tom Davies. In these three phenomenal years, Sam scored 104 tries in just 88 appearances and his final figures of 119 touchdowns in 132 games represents one of the best tries to appearances ratio in the history of the club.
Press reports of the time would talk about his “corkscrew” runs as he weaved inside and outside of the opponents’ defensive line. In the successful Challenge Cup run of 1899, Sam scored 14 tries in the competition including five in the first round against Goole and two in the final itself, when Hunslet were defeated 19 – 9 at Fallowfield.
Considering that Sam played in an era when tries were much less in evidence than in subsequent years, his consistency in crossing the “whitewash” is seen as all the more remarkable. Arguably the first “Superstar” of the professional game, Sam Williams is unquestionably Oldham’s most lethal ever wing man.