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Watersheddings


clifford

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10 hours ago, howardm1978 said:

Where did everyone on here used to stand? 

We always stood in the Waterhead paddock (bottom right of the picture) my Dad still hates going behind the sticks. 

Always produced a good atmosphere the 'sheddings stand though

 

 

Me and my mate,i went with his family used to be next to the dugout on the right as the players ran out of the tunnel.I once had Charlie McAllister's boot lace pinned to my bedroom wall.He was my favourite player.

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9 hours ago, roughyed34 said:

Top of the Sheddings end, right behind the posts. Some happy days in there and what a great atmosphere. Night matches at Sheddings were something else. Miss the old place still ?, the bottom picture breaks me every time I look at it ?

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Top image, absolutely fantastic. Bottom image is heartbreaking,even now when I see the ground I really miss not being there.Growing up in moorside it was part of the fixtures and fittings of the area,i saw it daily.Looking forward to the next home game.

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14 minutes ago, moorside roughyed said:

Me and my mate,i went with his family used to be next to the dugout on the right as the players ran out of the tunnel.I once had Charlie McAllister's boot lace pinned to my bedroom wall.He was my favourite player.

There used to be some of Oldhams most fanatical supporters plotted up there by the tunnel....they often abused both opposition and officials alike with a special kind of venom! I remember seeing opponents who had been sent off for skullduggery having coffee thrown over them as they sloped back to the dressing rooms in disgrace. Those were the days!

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I can remember a pensioner at one home game, a rather delicate looking lady. How wrong was i? Come kickoff she morphed into a crazed delirium and i quote "come on Oldham we can lick this lot" all the while thrashing her walking stick in the advertising hoarding. Great to see even as a teenager back then 

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11 hours ago, howardm1978 said:

Where did everyone on here used to stand? 

We always stood in the Waterhead paddock (bottom right of the picture) my Dad still hates going behind the sticks. 

Always produced a good atmosphere the 'sheddings stand though

 

 

Waterhead paddock,where the last floodlight pylon was,with my dad from 86-89,lay on top of the dugout 89-90 and then up with the singers in the Sheddings end from 90 till the last game at sheddings..

OLDHAM RLFC

the 8TH most successful team in british RL

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10 hours ago, roughyed34 said:

Top of the Sheddings end, right behind the posts. Some happy days in there and what a great atmosphere. Night matches at Sheddings were something else. Miss the old place still ?, the bottom picture breaks me every time I look at it ?

1523482853404.jpg

1523482707259.jpg

That bottom pic...I'd just started working nights at Tesco and I walked home one morning past this exact sight,I walked a cross the pitch,ruined by jcb tracks,and went and sat on the very top step of the Sheddings end...and cried my eyes out..

Bastards :(

OLDHAM RLFC

the 8TH most successful team in british RL

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Always stood behind the posts at the pavilion end from 1960 till they pulled the old lady down.

Some great memories Paddy Kirwin's try against the invincible Pie Eaters being one of the best. What I really do miss are the wisecracks from the crowd, without any swearing. Shouting at the ref when he made a bad decision "Don't bring your wife troubles here!" and to play a game the had dumped about 20 tons of sand on the pitch and we scored a try and someone came on with a bucket of sand to which someone shouted, "Where've you pinched that" Great days.

At the last game against Swinton, days before they tore the old lady down, I put Kieran on my shoulders to pull down the exit sign I hdd walked under for all those years. Like roughyspud I went back when the ground was in ruins and picked up a red and white brick from the back of the stand, a brick from the old pavilion and I still have them and also I took  five cuttings from the  players'tunnel wall, one survived and is growing profusely over my garden fence and up the wall.

I still remember standing there on my old spot in the pouring rain crying my eyes out.

There are two people in particular who have a lot to answer for  the heartbreak and tears they caused!!!!!

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On 26/04/2018 at 11:16 AM, roughyed34 said:

Top of the Sheddings end, right behind the posts. Some happy days in there and what a great atmosphere. Night matches at Sheddings were something else. Miss the old place still ?, the bottom picture breaks me every time I look at it ?

1523482853404.jpg

 

Same here - right behind the sticks, but some times from my bedroom window, as my house backed onto the Herbert St stand. My dad would take me in when the gates opened about 20mins before full-time. 

You are right about night games. I remember playing Bradford in about 1992-93 or 93-94; I think Dave Watson scored after his kick was charged down. Great atmosphere during those night games. Also remember the old place being absolutely rammed (with about 7.5k) against Huddersfield in the cup in 1995. God only knows how 28k ever got in there!

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14 minutes ago, philipw said:

Also remember the old place being absolutely rammed (with about 7.5k) against Huddersfield in the cup in 1995. God only knows how 28k ever got in there!

During my Watersheddings time (1970s), the actual attendances were often greater than the official figures,as turnstile operators used to take your money but then had you climb over the turnstile itself so no record was made of some the people actually in the ground. Same used to go on at the Latics too,but on a smaller scale.

The Oldham-Widnes Challenge Cup quarter final in the mid-70s was one memorable game were the stands were packed yet the official attendance was pretty low. Everyone knew that one was dodgy in the extreme.

I always assumed it was officially sanctioned,that the cash went Arthur Walker and was distributed as he saw fit.

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4 hours ago, philipw said:

Also remember the old place being absolutely rammed (with about 7.5k) against Huddersfield in the cup in 1995. God only knows how 28k ever got in there!

Over 9,000 there that day...and it was quite scary how rammed it was..

OLDHAM RLFC

the 8TH most successful team in british RL

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On 26/04/2018 at 4:19 AM, Pigeon Lofter said:

There used to be some of Oldhams most fanatical supporters plotted up there by the tunnel....they often abused both opposition and officials alike with a special kind of venom! I remember seeing opponents who had been sent off for skullduggery having coffee thrown over them as they sloped back to the dressing rooms in disgrace. Those were the days!

They certainly were mate.

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12 hours ago, Pigeon Lofter said:

During my Watersheddings time (1970s), the actual attendances were often greater than the official figures,as turnstile operators used to take your money but then had you climb over the turnstile itself so no record was made of some the people actually in the ground. Same used to go on at the Latics too,but on a smaller scale.

The Oldham-Widnes Challenge Cup quarter final in the mid-70s was one memorable game were the stands were packed yet the official attendance was pretty low. Everyone knew that one was dodgy in the extreme.

I always assumed it was officially sanctioned,that the cash went Arthur Walker and was distributed as he saw fit.

As I was born in 76 I started watching in the 80s.Its really sad that our crowds have gone from thousands to hundreds over the years.But we are still as passionate about Oldham and rugby league even though we are fewer in numbers.

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15 minutes ago, moorside roughyed said:

As I was born in 76 I started watching in the 80s.Its really sad that our crowds have gone from thousands to hundreds over the years.But we are still as passionate about Oldham and rugby league even though we are fewer in numbers.

Similar here, though I was born in 78. Just having a read through programmes and in 87/88 in the 2nd div we had an average of 3k. 

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When I first started following Oldham regularly, with a mate and his father, we used to stand in the paddock at the Pavilion corner.

In those days ( around 1957 ) Oldham Corporation ran buses on match days from the bus garage at Mumps up to Watersheddings and back after the game. With probably 10 to 15 minutes ( I'm guessing now ) to go there would be a huge influx of drivers and conductors to watch the end of the game before disappearing to their vehicles.

Whilst the players ran onto the pitch from beneath the main stand at the beginning of the game and after half time, for years they would leave in the corner by the paddock, often with spectators milling around.

i remember after a match against Wakefield Trinity, Don Vines, who had transferred to Trinity. belted a spectator who turned out to be a lad from our school. Don said later that he had felt someone kick him and he just lashed out, not completely out of character it has to be said. I can't remember if it went any further than that. Someone on here might recall if it did. Would be all hell let loose were that to happen today.

 

 

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I was at Roundthorn Primary School in the sixties and remember using a lethal contraption called a guillotine -which they wouldn't let kids anywhere near these days - and staying in at playtime to cut free passes for kids to get in to watersheddings. Did it for Mr Whitworth,  who I'm sure is mentioned in Paul Sculthorpe's autobiography. Earliest memory watching Murphy kick towards those immense Ted topped posts. Left Oldham in 1970 but started travelling down from Teesside in the late 90s. Found my place behind the posts.  What an atmosphere'.!  Even brought work colleagues down. One of took her daughter from Middlesbrough when the yeds beat Wigan one foul but wondrous December night when to my shame I stayed at home in the warm.  Last game dug up  a lump of turf which remains unknown to the current owner, in a Stockton on Tees garden.  Like losing part of your life. 

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From  about 68 we stood in the Herbert Street stand ,penny rush corner.Still Saturday matches then.Wilf Briggs,Derek Whitehead,Bob Irving etc. We were reminiscing about standing there at a BF game last year.My cousins lad was highly amused when an Oldham touch kick shot through the bog doors on the main stand side.We told him about Johnny Blair slotting a touch kick between the planks in the Covered part of the Herbert Street stand.The ball went into the void underneath and probably remained there with the  newspapers,woodbine and old Holborn packs until it was demolished.Course when you look back with today's standards in mind it's clear why that stand was the first to go.

Still, happy times and after the match round to grandads on Equitable Street for a hot vimto before catching the 82,98 to George st and t'B bus to Fitton Hill.

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I was born and lived in Austerlands. We used to look downwards towards the ground. It was so high up there we could almost see the players running about on the pitch. Then, as a little boy, we moved to Ashes Lane in Springhead. We could always tell when Oldham scored because, even from there, we could hear the crowd cheering. Great days. Great memories. 

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