Watersheddings

Watersheddings was the site of a former rugby league stadium in the Watersheddings area of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. Historically in Lancashire and lying on the A672 (Ripponden Road) approximately 2 miles north east of Oldham town centre.

Reportedly the highest professional RL ground in the UK at 770 ft above sea level, which would also list it as the highest ground of any professional sport in the UK.^[1]

Origins

The stadium known as Watersheddings named after the area of Oldham that it was located in was built in 1889. It was constructed on the east side of a reservoir, Ruby Mill and Longfield Mill and north of Longfield Lane. At the same time the Oldham Cricket Ground was built adjacent to the stadium on it's east side and a lawn tennis ground was constructed on its north side.^[2]

History

Oldham Football Club (more commonly known as Oldham Rugby League Football Club) moved from their Clarksfield Ground and played their first match at the new Watersheddings stadium on 28 September 1889 against Swinton.^[1]

In 1904 Watershedding was selected to host the very first Rugby league International between England and Other Nationalities on New Year's Day 1904 but the game was cancelled due to a frozen pitch,the game was moved to April and Central Park, Wigan and in 1912, the stadium achieved its highest ever attendance of 28,000 against Huddersfield.^[1] In the 1914/15 season Watershedding was selected to host the Challenge Cup final

year	Teams	Score	Team	Venue	Attendance
1914–15	Huddersfield	37–3	St Helens	Watersheddings, Oldham	8,000

In 1933 the cricket ground was demolished making way for the Oldham Greyhound Stadium; the south stand and kennels were erected next to the south-east corner of the Watersheddings ground.^[3] The Watersheddings floodlights were used for the first time on Wednesday 20 October 1965, when a crowd of 6,333 attended an under-24 international between Great Britain and France.^[1]

Closure

The club left Watersheddings in 1997 and, now called Oldham Roughyeds, moved to Oldham Athletic AFC's Boundary Park stadium before they moved to Whitebank Stadium in 2010.^[4] The Watersheddings site was redeveloped into housing now called Watersheddings Way and Hutchins Lane.

Australia and New Zealand

The stadium, in its time, played host to many Australian and New Zealand national teams who played tour games against Oldham, the first being against the 1907 touring New Zealand team, the last being against Australia in 1986.

game	Date	Result	Attendance
1	23 November 1907	Oldham def. New Zealand 8-7	12,000
2	26 December 1908	Oldham def. Australia 11-5	15,000
3	11 November 1911	Oldham def. Australia 14-8	10,000
4	26 November 1921	Australia def. Oldham 16-5	15,344
5	16 January 1922	Oldham def. Australia 15-5	6,000
6	23 October 1926	Oldham def. New Zealand 15-10	16,000
7	2 November 1929	Australia def. Oldham 18-10	19,284
8	9 September 1934	Australia def. Oldham 38-6	5,000
9	6 November 1937	Australia def. Oldham 10-6	12,265
10	25 October 1947	New Zealand def. Oldham 18-8	17,239
11	4 December 1948	Australia def. Oldham 27-7	14,798
12	29 September 1951	Oldham def. New Zealand 21-18	15,174
13	15 September 1952	Australia drew. Oldham 7-7	19,620
14	29 October 1955	New Zealand def. Oldham 15-13	14,700
15	7 November 1956	Oldham def. Australia 21-2	8,956
16	3 October 1959	Australia def. Oldham 25-14	17,621
17	4 September 1961	Oldham & Rochdale XIII def. New Zealand 10-8	8,795
18	5 October 1963	Australia def. Oldham 12-4	11,773
19	31 August 1965	New Zealand def. Oldham 5-2	10,333
20	11 November 1967	Australia def. Oldham 18-8	3,329
21	27 October 1971	New Zealand def. Oldham 24-13	1,872
22	19 October 1973	Australia def. Oldham 44-10	2,770
23	4 November 1975	Australia def. Oldham 20-10	3,675
24	4 November 1986	Australia def. Oldham 22-16	5,678

References