Oldham’s promotion-winning season in 2024 has been built on strong defence, which has echoes of past glories for the club in the early years of the Northern Union.
OLDHAM are on the up – thanks partly to keeping opponents’ scores down.
Sean Long’s powerful side nilled teams in seven out of 20 matches this year as they romped to the League One title and automatic promotion to the Championship after an absence of three years.
Just one game was lost – 28-18 at Keighley – and only one other side topped 20 points against them, with North Wales Crusaders beaten 25-24 at Colwyn Bay.
In total, the Roughyeds shipped only 144 points – an average of 7.2 per outing – and it was the club’s best season in terms of defence since 1910-11, when Jim Mallalieu’s men won a second successive league title.
So let’s turn back the clock and check out a campaign in which just 210 points were conceded in 34 league matches – an average of 6.2 per game.
It was a time of William ‘Birdie’ Dixon, James ‘Jumbo’ Lomas, Bert ‘Slosher’ Avery, Arthur ‘Mad’ Smith and Jim ‘Bumper’ Wright, with a side boasting an impressive array of nicknames made up of Cumberland natives, including inspirational captain Joe Ferguson, West Country men, Aussies, a New Zealander and a smattering of locals.
And way before Salford stirred controversy with their team selection for the final match of the 2024 regular season at Wigan, Oldham were doing the same thing – against the same opposition.
It was only the 16th campaign since the big split from rugby union of 1895.
And the Roughyeds went into the second decade of the 20th Century as one of rugby league’s top sides along with Wigan, featuring skilful Kiwi back Lance Todd, and the emerging Huddersfield ‘Team of All Talents’, led by the ‘Prince of Centres’ Harold Wagstaff.
After a series of league restructures in the game’s early days, a single-division system was settled on after Oldham won the top flight in 1904-05.
With too many clubs to play each other home and away, the competition was organised on a roughly geographical basis, and because not all had the same number of fixtures, league positions were down to winning percentage (that persisted until 1929-30).
After claims that 1905-06 champions Leigh had an easier set of fixtures than second-placed Hunslet, play-offs were introduced to decide the destination of the title.
The Roughyeds reached the first five Championship Finals, losing to Halifax and Hunslet (twice) before beating Wigan 13-7 at Wheater’s Field, home of the Salford-based club Broughton (later Belle Vue) Rangers, in their fourth in 1909-10.
Their team was built around Ferguson, the versatile king of their pack in an era when the forward positions were less defined than they are now.
Originally from Ellenborough in Cumberland, he was courted by a string of clubs in the early days of rugby league, finally heading to Lancashire to join Oldham after being winded and dined as they lifted the Challenge Cup for the first time by beating Hunslet 19-9 at Fallowfield Stadium, Manchester in 1898-99.
Strong in both defence and attack, he was a great organiser who could also kick effectively when required, his mighty field-goal from halfway sealing the 4-3 Lancashire Cup Final triumph over Swinton at Wheater’s Field earlier in the 1910-11 season.
Ferguson, who represented England, Lancashire and Cumberland, remains the Roughyeds’ record appearance maker with 627 up to 1922-23, when he was 44.
Also from the far north-west were winger Billy Dixon (not to be confused with fullback Birdie Dixon (who was also called William), and forward Jim Owens.
Oldham also scouted the south-west extensively, yielding valuable recruits from rugby union in England fullback Alf Wood, signed from Cheltenham having previously starred for Bristol, halfback Tom White (Bath) and forwards Mad Smith (Cinderford) and Slosher Avery (Devonport), all of whom played rugby league for Great Britain.
New Zealand rugby union winger George Smith was snapped up after starring on the first-ever rugby league tour of Great Britain by the Kiwi ‘All Golds’ in 1907-08 (he had also visited with the All Blacks in 1905-06).
A supreme all-rounder, the Auckland ace was also a champion sprinter and hurdler and a noted jockey.
And when Australia made their first tour in 1908-09, the Roughyeds signed North Sydney centre Sid Deane and dual-code international halfback George Anzelark.
Of course one of the keys to continued success is freshening up a squad, and Oldham did that in the middle of the 1910-11 campaign by luring Jumbo Lomas from Salford for a rugby league record transfer fee of £300.
The game’s first three-figure player (he had cost Salford £100 when they brought him in from Bramley in 1901) and the first Great Britain touring captain (to Australia and New Zealand in 1910), he added both bulk and slick handling to the backline.
There were some who thought Jumbo past his best, but 13 tries in his 17 outings for the Roughyeds in 1910-11 suggested otherwise.
Two of them (each worth three points), plus three goals (two points apiece) came in the 20-7 Championship Final victory over Wigan, again at Wheater’s Field.
White also crossed twice with Ferguson landing a goal as the crown was retained.
Amazingly, both Wigan and Oldham finished the regular season with the same winning percentage of 83.82.
Even though both were guaranteed home play-off semi-finals a week after the closing matches, they were required to face each other on neutral territory at Wakefield to decide who were considered table-toppers and would therefore host fourth-placed Widnes rather than Trinity, who were third.
With the preliminary showdown squeezed in on the Wednesday, both sides incurred the wrath of the governing body by making wholesale changes.
Wigan won 11-3, then saw off Widnes 16-0, while Oldham beat Wakefield 15-12 but lost Wood to injury, with Birdie Dixon taking his place.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 502 (November 2024)
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