Those were the days! | Oldham RLFC

Joe Warburton, now aged 61 (not 66 as stated in the original article on this) is to meet the town’s junior coaches tonight (Wed) with a view to starting up junior town teams again. Together with John Byram, and with the full backing and support of Mike Ford and Oldham RLFC, Joe is pushing for the appointment of a head coach and two assistant coaches in each of four age groups. Ford, meanwhile, will meet the Oldham Amateur League and club reps — NOT the public — in the hope of forging closer relationships.

If the plan to resurrect junior town teams goes ahead and there is sufficient backing for this proposal, Ford himself and two of his three sons — Joe and George — will do sessions at Melrose Playing Fields to ‘coach the coaches’ — all for the benefit of Oldham youngsters and to give them the opportunity to play for their town in red and white hoops, writes ROGER HALSTEAD.

Mike Ford’s record as player and coach is well known and well chronicled. Joe now coaches Doncaster RUFC after playing for several top-class Union clubs, while George currently plays for Sale Sharks, has won more than 70 England RU caps and hopes to be in the forthcoming World Cup squad when it is announced soon.

Father and sons are all Oldhamers who learned their trade playing Rugby League in a town with a rich heritage of producing Super League stars and top personalities, among them the likes of Kevin Sinfield, Paul Sculthorpe, Iestyn Harris, Barrie McDermott and, more recently, Mark Flanagan and Marc Sneyd.

Mike Ford and the late Hugh Waddell toured Australia with Great Britain years ago while, in 1984. Oldham had a club record FIVE players on tour — Ray Ashton, Des Foy, Terry Flanagan, Andy Goodway and Mick Worrall — as well as the British coach, Frank Myler.

We are indebted to Joe Warburton for submitting these pictures.hours before his bid to bring back town-team rugby,

The picture from Wembley shows Mike Ford in an under-11s town team that also included Richard Russell, Andy Barlow, who went on to play football for Oldham Athletic, Andy Brown, Darren Chadwick, Paul Garnett and Mark Smalley.

The other picture is a 1977 shot of the under-13s, under-14s, under-15s and under-16s showing Joe Warburton (holding the cups), Chris Deakin, Keith Atkinson, Damian Chadwick, Steve Walsh, Mick Swift, Des Foy, Chris Willis, Paul Willis.

Among others in the four groups (teachers, coaches, officials) are Phil Larder, Dave Fricker, Fred Laughton and John Hall of Oldham RLFC.