As they celebrate promotion into the Championship, Oldham chairman and co-owner Bill Quinn, along with Mike Ford and Sean Long, are already planning to achieve future successes for the club.
MIKE FORD – a former league scrum-half and proven coach in both codes of the game.
Sean Long – a winner of four Super League titles, five Challenge Cups, three Lance Todd Trophies and a Man of Steel award.
With these two rugby greats on either side of him, is it any wonder Bill Quinn is loving life as chairman and co-owner of newly-promoted Oldham RLFC?
“For any chairman out there to have Mike Ford on one side of him and Sean Long on the other, especially at a League One club, is unbelievable,” said a delighted Quinn after watching the side earn automatic promotion to the Championship for 2025.
“The club was punching well above its weight to capture those guys.
“My motto is to keep pushing forward and I am fortunate that Mike has a very similar mentality, so with his experience, it’s a pretty formidable team. Then add Sean into that with his experience and the ideas he brings to us – it’s quite the trio to be a part of.
“Our philosophy of putting the players first really does work. They have bought into everything we’re trying to do. They never moan, they’re never obstructive, they love the fans and the fans love them.
“The culture we have created here is fantastic and there’s a real sense of togetherness. Hopefully, that can drive us to more success.
“We are just custodians of the club. It turns 150 years old soon and will go on for another 150 years. We want to make our own bit of history by bringing Oldham back from as low as it was possible to be, to bringing some success, enjoyment and pride back to a real rugby town.”
Ford initially purchased his hometown club in March 2023 as part of a consortium, with Quinn becoming involved soon after.
Quinn is now the majority shareholder, alongside Ford, two custodians of a club that they have big passion and high hopes for.
With a move back to Boundary Park already secured, one of the next tasks for Ford and Quinn was to find the right coach and squad to deliver their vision of taking the club back to the very top of the game.
Having parted company with previous coach Stuart Littler in August last year, Ford himself took temporary charge for the remainder of the season before Long was appointed on a three-year deal.
Between them, the trio have created something special, and any initial reservations Quinn might have had before Long’s arrival have long since been laid to rest.
“When I first came in I had quite a few conversations with Mike about what the vision of the club was and we decided to put a squad together that we felt could win the league and would then be good enough to go into the Championship with just a little bit added to it,” continued Quinn.
“We never set out saying we’re going to win this league, because no one has any given right to win any game or competition. But it was a goal of ours and we felt if we could set out with the right players and the right coach then we could achieve that goal.
“When I first met Sean, when we were interviewing him, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I did have some preconceived ideas about him, but he blew me away after that first meeting.
“He was always flamboyant as a player and just had that look about him. You could use all sorts of words, like wild, to describe him, so I didn’t know what was going to come through the door.
“But he’s humble, knowledgable and just a very decent human being. From the moment we met him, it just felt right and me and Mike knew we had our man.
“He’s more than proved what we felt after that first meeting. I rate him, not just as a coach but as a person as well. The way he deals with people, the squad and different situations – he’s special and I do believe he will go on to do great things in coaching.”
Now the task facing all three men is to be a competitive Championship side in an era when Super League hopes do not just come down to success on the field.
With the IMG grading system now in place, Quinn and Ford in particular must remain focused on getting things right off the field to improve their points score if they are to even be in with a shout of bringing Super League rugby back to the town.
But as with the challenge they took on this year to return to the Championship, it’s a fight they’re ready to tackle head-on.
“Me and Mike have spent so much time together we’re like a married couple,” joked Quinn.
“We’re always planning ahead, we’re not just looking at next season, but the season after that and the one after that.
“A lot is going on off the field as well with our pathways, the development of our Melrose training ground, and lots of things happening with regard to our fans.
“It’s a non-stop situation and I never realised how busy it would be, but when you love it and enjoy it, it doesn’t feel like a burden.
“We still believe we have a Championship squad at the club and we have already done some of our recruitment to make that into a very strong Championship squad.
“Neither myself nor Mike would even contemplate going into the Championship and then dropping back out again so we have big ambitions and we’re definitely moving forward and pushing to take this club as far as possible.
“We know that if that is to include Super League there are things we need to work on so that we can get to the necessary requirements.
“Whether or not IMG is the right way to do things is not for me to decide. We just have to focus on what we can do, while at the same time putting a team on the field that will hopefully put us in a position where people have to scratch their heads and question what they do now.
“We have set our goals and we will all do our best to achieve them so let’s go up into the Championship and see how that goes.”
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 501 (October 2024)
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