Oldham 1989

[rlno1]

I was watching the 1989 Lancashire Cup Final on Youtube between Warrington and Oldham and was surprised to hear Oldham made the Final from the 2nd Division and beat the mighty Wigan 19-18 in the semi final!!!

What a great effort and they put up a decent fight in the final too. 

Ray Tennant was the ref in the final and disallowed a clear Oldham try.

 

[Bilko]

6 hours ago, rlno1 said:

I was watching the 1989 Lancashire Cup Final on Youtube between Warrington and Oldham and was surprised to hear Oldham made the Final from the 2nd Division and beat the mighty Wigan 19-18 in the semi final!!!

What a great effort and they put up a decent fight in the final too. 

Ray Tennant was the ref in the final and disallowed a clear Oldham try.

 

Oldham also had a remarkable 36-6 victory away at St Helens in the previous round also. It ended a run of 18 consecutive Lancashire Cup victories for Wigan going back to the 1984 Final v St Helens. 

[Gooleboy]

Second Division Premiership Final at Old Trafford, Featherstone v Oldham. Oldham 22 - 0 in front, Rovers then staged a brilliant fight back to lead 26 - 22, only for Oldham to nick it with a last minute converted try. Great game.

[sentoffagain2]

16 minutes ago, Gooleboy said:

Second Division Premiership Final at Old Trafford, Featherstone v Oldham. Oldham 22 - 0 in front, Rovers then staged a brilliant fight back to lead 26 - 22, only for Oldham to nick it with a last minute converted try. Great game.

Remember it well what a great game.As you say 26-22 up with 4 min to go and Des Foy  who had already scored 2 tries accelerated through a gap in our defence and put the backing up Kevin Meadows in for the equalising try, the easy goal kick just scraped over the bar  What a Game.

[Padge]

Paddy Kerwin has a middle name in Wigan. Fekin.

[Scubby]

They also had one of the best RL kits of all time during that period. Still my favourite!

[The Art of Hand and Foot]

It really is so sad. The sale of the stadium was really the last straw.  Couldn't afford to upgrade it. We were supposed to move to boundary park with the football on the promise of a new stadium.  It  never materialised. The old club went bust and the rest is, as they say, history.

[Hela Wigmen]

Are Oldham the last non-top flight club to win a major honour? I can only think of three non-top flight clubs getting to the semi’s of the cup in the Super League era (Toulouse, Hull KR and Halifax). 

[Snowys Backside]

As a Leigh fan, always had a soft spot for Oldham. Always workmanlike teams and gutted when they signed John Henderson from us.

Let's not be too surprised here as 

Oldham was relegated the season before on 25 points finishing 4th bottom?

The SL expansionist would not sleep at the thought of that. Remember Leigh taking a couple of thousand for a relegation dogfight and amazingly put 50 past Oldham then do the double over Warrington on the last day of the season to stay up in 1988.

 

[unapologetic pedant]

10 hours ago, rlno1 said:

I was watching the 1989 Lancashire Cup Final on Youtube between Warrington and Oldham and was surprised to hear Oldham made the Final from the 2nd Division and beat the mighty Wigan 19-18 in the semi final!!!

What a great effort and they put up a decent fight in the final too. 

Ray Tennant was the ref in the final and disallowed a clear Oldham try.

 

Remember Oldham`s challenge cup run of 1990 as a second division side. They produced an extraordinary performance to beat Widnes away in the quarter when Widnes were one of the top two teams in the country, then came within a hair`s breadth against Warrington in a tight engrossing semi.Tony Barrow was an under-rated coach.

[unapologetic pedant]

2 hours ago, Gooleboy said:

Second Division Premiership Final at Old Trafford, Featherstone v Oldham. Oldham 22 - 0 in front, Rovers then staged a brilliant fight back to lead 26 - 22, only for Oldham to nick it with a last minute converted try. Great game.

Not 100% certain, but think Robin Whitfield refereed this game. He was a play-on, unfussy, let `em get on with it, type of ref, which usually made for exciting games.

[tub]

The Wigan side Oldham beat in that famous 4th Feb 1987 CC tie on a never to be forgotten night at  Watersheddings  is below , probably one of the great all time teams looking at the line up that went on to beat Manly in the World Club challenge at Central Park .

Paddy Kirwan's last minute try made him a legend  !  .........  just hope we can turn the corner and build again one day !

 

WiganlBacks:l	1. Steve Hampson, 2. Joe Lydon, 3. Ellery Hanley, 4. Dean Bell, 5. Henderson Gill, 6. Shaun Edwards, 7. Andy Gregory
WiganlForwards:l	8. Graeme West, 9. Martin Dermott, 10. Brian Case, 11. Ian Roberts, 12. Ian Potter, 13. Andy Goodway
WiganlSubs Used:l	14. David Stephenson (replaced Steve Hampson -70th Minute)

[Fartownfrontrow]

Watersheddings and Thrum Hall always my favourite away grounds great atmosphere and always a hard game  both now sadly gone but will live long in Rugby League memories 

[sentoffagain2]

53 minutes ago, Fartownfrontrow said:

Watersheddings and Thrum Hall always my favourite away grounds great atmosphere and always a hard game  both now sadly gone but will live long in Rugby League memories 

Probably the two coldest grounds i have been to when the matches were played in winter.Odsal the third coldest.

[MADREDNIGE]

4 hours ago, sentoffagain2 said:

Remember it well what a great game.As you say 26-22 up with 4 min to go and Des Foy  who had already scored 2 tries accelerated through a gap in our defence and put the backing up Kevin Meadows in for the equalising try, the easy goal kick just scraped over the bar  What a Game.

ALL the fans stood and clapped both teams that day, whilst disappointed it didn't feel like a bad defeat because of the way we came back from such a deficit. 

[The Art of Hand and Foot]

33 minutes ago, MADREDNIGE said:

ALL the fans stood and clapped both teams that day, whilst disappointed it didn't feel like a bad defeat because of the way we came back from such a deficit. 

2 years later it was similar. Except we, oldham, came back from a 29-8 deficit with 20 minutes to go, against HKR. We won 30-29. The HKR fans weren't so generous though.

[Lewis]

Great clips. Such a shame what has happened with Oldham. I have always had a soft spot for them and hoped they could make it back to the big time one day. 

[Sports Prophet]

22 hours ago, rlno1 said:

 

Ray Tennant was the ref in the final and disallowed a clear Oldham try.

 

No more a corrupt official have I known in my lifetime.

[Wilderspoolmemories]

• To be fair that 1989/1990 season Oldham side was a second division outfit in name only. They claimed some noteable first division scalps in cup comps that year....fortunately we were not one of them!

[Fartownfrontrow]

Bit cold in Whitehaven too with all the Mara,s

 

[Gooleboy]

2 hours ago, Wigan Riversider said:

Oldham played Wigan in 1991 challenge cup semi and made a second half comeback after Wigan had dominated the opening stanza.

1995 semi saw Wigan defeat the Roughyeds convincingly.

Fond memories.

Oldham fully deserved it that night.

Personally I would never have picked that Wigan line up.

I was praying Mick Burke would slip n miss the kick after Paddy scored his try.

Remember he received some good natured booing at Central Park a few years later when he was introduced to the crowd: he wasn't playing.

In 95 as you say Oldham played Wigan in the Semi and Featherstone played Leeds in the other. If ever there was a draw for the conspiracy theorists, that was it!

[rlno1]

9 hours ago, Wigan Riversider said:

As per another thread: Unbeatables 1986 had very favourable refereeing decisions in Third Test at Central Park: 3 whinging whiners' tries should not have been awarded.

However, I am not a bitter nor am I a prejudiced man but...

1982 Invincibles were beaten by South Island New Zealand with some 'helpful' refereeing decisions.

It's life.

Not to mention Australia winning the 1985 2nd Test v NZ in the last seconds from a clear forward pass.

No whinging from the Aussies there.

Bob Fulton was the biggest whinger going around and was the reason Australia brought their own refs in 1994.

 

[koli]

A bit off topic but if Oldham found a Ken Davey or similar and built a reasonably successful SL side playing in Oldham would it be able to rebuild crowds to its old potential in the 7 to 10k region ?

Or have time and demographics made that unlikely?

[sheddingswasus]

Oldham is still a strong RL town. Many go out of town to watch SL etc. A lot of this is because the amateur clubs have tie ins (unofficial) to various SL clubs.

RL is Oldham is still divided. The local clubs seem have generally turned their backs on the the pro club, more than likely the way the owner treated in past years. 

To answer your question, yes with a rich benefactor and a local stadium ORLFC would thrive again!

[The Art of Hand and Foot]

To reinforce what 'sheddings was us' and 'rldoeswhatskysays' , have said, should a rich sheikh ever decide to divest some of his money into RL, then he could do a lot worse than 'invest' in Oldham. We have a good amateur set up, we have a history , but more than that we have belief.  Build it and they will come. Will have to see how my numbers do I  tonight's euro's.