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Aiming to repay faith

31/10/2007

LEE Wingfield is determined to repay Oldham’s faith in him after agreeing a one-year deal for 2008.

The 26-year-old, currently recovering from major knee surgery, has only made 19 appearances in his two years with the club.

He turned down offers from Blackpool and Oldham, explaining that if he were to have left Oldham, he would have returned to his former amateur club Leigh East.

Wingfield said: “As far as the pro game is concerned it was Oldham, or nowhere. They gave me my chance in the pro game, and when bad luck haunted me, they stood by me. That, I will never forget.”

He is the latest player to sign up for next year, following the likes of Lucas Onyango and Gareth Langley, along with newcomers such as Danny Halliwell and Mick Nanyn.

However, club chairman Bill Quinn has stressed that Oldham, who have been linked with Widnes’ Mark Smith, are not spending silly money in pursuit of promotion.

Quinn said: “We still have more recruiting to do, but things are coming along nicely. We’ve made some great signings and there are more to come.

“One myth I would like to kill is that we are getting players to come here just because we are splashing the cash. That’s wrong. We are not ‘selling’ the club to players merely by offering the silk purse – we are ‘selling’ the club to them on our plans for the future, our vision, our togetherness, our happy ship, and that when we make promises we keep them.

“Players are coming here who have had better offers elsewhere, but they like our set-up. They know we have a quality coach, that the club is moving forward at a fast rate of knots, and they have confidence that they are coming into the right sort of environment.

“Players chat among themselves and those who are coming in have been given good reports about the club. Things like that count for everything. It isn’t all about money.”

Having lost Adam Hughes, Ian Sinfield, Tony Tonks and Andy Gorey, the club remians on the lookout for an assistant coach after family issues meant Alan Hadcroft declined a new deal.