[Rugby History Thread]

I'm not sure if this has been referred to already, but I believe Oldham Rugby Heritage Trust has a season ticket from the 1895/96 breakaway season. I've seen a photo of the fixtures page, which details the original fixtures planned before the split on the left hand side and The Northern Union fixtures on the right hand side. If that's not an illustration of the social history of part of this country, then I don't know what is.

[Football]

A lot has been said about City's amazing 14 wins on the bounce at the end of the season (another record) but what is truly phenomenal is that, although they gained 44 points from the first half of the season (19 games), not bad, they've picked up 54 points out of a possible 57 in the second half, hardly believable!

[Haliclowns]

Having a cig at the game is a big part of my enjoyment of my whole day, it only takes five minutes or so to have a quick ciggy, so a smoking hut in each corner of the ground for each stand wouldn't be too much of a problem. Even airports have gone back to having smoking areas now, stadiums like this are denying us of our legal rights in my opinion! We aren't bloody terrorists were just like to excercise our free choice to have a smoke when we want one. We cant smoke anywhere indoors anymore which is fine with me, but provision is aways made outside pubs, clubs and public centers etc. How can an open air stadium with plenty of wind access from each corner prevent people from excecising their legal rights, provision should be made, my rights are being affected and im being tempted to break the law!!!!! Why???

There was a guy near us smoking and we noticed the police watching him from the front where they were stood and gettng themselves sorted to burst up the stand and frog march him out! He was having a fag not causing trouble! Why treat someone like a criminal for having a fag!

I see the reason for not smoking on a plane, it's a confined area! you can't exactly nip outside for one so you prepare for that, it's common sense! a bit different to an open air stadium who can easilly make provision for smokers!

You want to see the farcical situation we have at Whitebank. In what is little more than a park pitch fenced off (beggars can't be choosers, it was the only ground we could get), as you walk into the ground, you are greeted with a sign that the stadium is a no smoking stadium. As you can smoke at Sedgley Park (Swinton's ground), within the boundaries of Bury MBC, I can only think that one of the conditions of the Oldham MBC giving us a ground safety licence is that the ground must be a non smoking arena. Smokers may also notice that, the worse or the tighter the game, the more you want a fag. Thank goodness for Uncle Joe's.

[London Skolars v Oldham. KO 6.30 Friday]

The final score (48.18 to Oldham) means that the Roughyeds have emulated Featherstone and gone through the entire league campaign unbeaten away from home, a fantastic achievement, and the first time we've done it in our entire 134 year history.

Hopefully, we can now top that off with promotion.