Clubs > Todmorden > The 1980’s

The 1980’s

The team was now coached by Peter Mills. Peter was a former Mayfield and Rochdale Hornets player who brought a few good, seasoned players to the club including Jonny Hammond, Norman Relsford (ex-Rochdale Hornets), Peter Birchall (ex-Halifax) and even Mike Ratu (one of Hornets’ Fijians) who played a few games.

The team had a good first season under Peter in 1980-81 and finished in 4th place in the league with Peter Mills winning the Pennine League Division 3 Clubman of the Year.

For the next couple of seasons Todmorden continued to finish mid table in Division 3 winning half of their games. The club had left the heights of Cross Stones and the Bay Horse and moved into the town to play at the Welholme Park near the Bandstand and go back to the Fenton public house. There would be a good crowd on the touchline for home Cup games with two or three hundred people watching. Billy Collier explained,
“there was a buzz around the town. Todmorden Rugby League club really made an impact on the town.”

One Cup game was in the BARLA National Cup 1st round when the visitors were Leigh Miners which drew a big crowd despite the weather. The team had to mark the pitch out the morning of the game with sawdust and a blizzard greeted the players. With Leigh leading 20-6 the referee finally abandoned the game.

Around this time, Lionel Oie was running around the park in Todmorden which ended with him and his brother Tony training with the junior teams and both went on to play open age for the club. The juniors team introduced Dave Cook, Steven Murphy and others to the open age team in the years to come.

The open age team had continued to play well in Division 3 just missing out on promotion to Division 2 in 1984-85 when they finished in second with 14 wins from 18 game record. Promotion did follow and in the 1987-88 season Todmorden were back in Division 2. The season did not go well as they finished second from bottom with only 3 wins from their 18 games. Barry Connor, a long serving player and ex-Oldham man, had taken over the coaching reigns in 1987 and he brought in family members, Chris and Mick. Todmorden succeeded to make the move back up to Division 2 with a third-place finish in 1989-90 winning 14 of 20 games.

By the 1985-86 season, the club had formed an “A” team which played in Pennine League Division 7. Although they managed to win 7 of their 28 games, they were relegated. In their next season, the “A” team managed 8 wins in Division 8 but failed to reappear for the 1989-90 season.

Lionel Oie, now playing open age in the late 1980’s, obviously enjoyed his time playing Rugby League and tells of “brutal games at Shaw.” And a game over at Higgingshaw when he made a break down the wing
“I was clotheslined by a prop who was having treatment on the halfway line. ‘Not as fast as you thought’ the prop said!”

During the early 1980’s, the club also ran U14 and U16 teams which led to a number of players coming through later to the open age team. The most notable was Neil Cowie who went on to sign for Rochdale Hornets in 1986 and in 1991 signed for Wigan playing as substitute in their World Club Championship win over Penrith Panthers the following season. He made 7 internationals appearances for Wales and 3 for Great Britain.