Former Lions legend passes away at 86
FORMER Rochdale Hornets rugby league centre Malcolm Price has died at the age of 86. A proud Welshman, he has been described as arguably one of the best players ever to leave the Principality to turn professional.
Malcolm was one of the few players to represent the UK at both Union and League, having won nine Union caps for Wales before selection for the British Lions at the age of 21.
He was a prolific try-scorer on the Lions 1959 Tour of Australia and New Zealand.
He had lived in Milnrow for more than 50 years and was a keen and active member of the Hornets Explayers’ Association, having played at the old Athletic Grounds for more than a decade, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.
He finally ended his long rugby league career at Salford after breaking an ankle.
The British & Irish Lions has sent its condolences to Price’s family and friends, while the Welsh Rugby Union also paid tribute to him on its website.
Born in Pontypool, and starring for that club, Wales and for the British Lions, he was hotly pursued by Rugby League clubs and eventually turned pro for Oldham during the 1961-62 season for a reported fee of £7,000.
Malcolm played just 23 games for Oldham after accidentally picking up a life-threatening pancreas injury, ironically at Rochdale which necessitated emergency surgery in Manchester and a long stay in hospital.
There were fears he might never play again, but his perseverance paid off and he returned to rugby at Watersheddings before transferring to Hornets for whom his stunning and classy centre performances earned him a Great Britain call-up.
Having been a Corporal in the RAF during National Service, when he worked in co-operative store management before and eventually becoming a regional manager for Norwest Co-operative Society. He retired in 1977 and lived in Rochdale for the rest of his life.
In 1992, he started working at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum as a warden and was there for more than a decade.
Oldham vice-president and former chairman John Chadwick said: “I think [his £7,000 signing fee for Oldham] was a world record at the time for a Union convert.
“The words ‘brilliant’ and ‘legendary’ are often over-used in sport, but Malc was indeed a wonderful centre whose Great Britain call-up was no surprise to those who knew him. But for his terrible injury in a Western Division game at the Athletic Grounds, while playing for Oldham, there is no telling what he might have achieved in Rugby League.”
As it was, Malcolm became one of the best centres in Rugby League, starring for Rochdale for many years and earning a glowing tribute from Johnny Noon, another former Oldham centre and then coach at Rochdale, who said of Price: “He was fast and stylish, one of the few centres in my era who was prepared to take on his opposite centre on the outside.
“With Alan Davies, I rate him as one of the two best centres I’ve ever seen.”
Former Oldham Evening Chronicle Roger Halstead, who volunteers for the Oldham Roughyeds, said: “For the best part of 60 years, Malcolm was regarded as an outcast down in South Wales, but five years ago he and friends were invited to a big Welsh Rugby dinner in Cardiff when he was installed as a Welsh ‘great’ and all previous barriers were broken down. I know that meant more to him than anyone could ever imagine.
“We knew each other well back in the day when we were both leading officials at Littleborough ARLFC. He went to that peace-making dinner with his four children, with former Hornets colleagues and with personal friends.
“Aged 50-plus, he was still faster and fitter than most of the lads in the Littleborough team, as he loved to show when he trained and coached them. This was the guy who once said: ‘Rugby is an ordinary game and in Wales we are ordinary men with no edge. We just play rugby, retire, and then watch rugby’.”
“He did more than that, not only serving as a very active and passionate member of the Rochdale Hornets Ex-players’ Association, but working hard for the Littleborough lads, becoming curator of the Toad Lane museum in Rochdale (birthplace of the Co-operative movement) and starring as a local badminton player, winning the Rochdale individual men’s title when well into his 60s.
In his Oldham days, he ran a post office in the Buersil area of Rochdale, and he lived in Milnrow for more than 50 years.
Roger added: “This is indeed sad news for both codes of rugby, for Oldham,
Rochdale Hornets and Salford (his three rugby league clubs), and for Pontypool, his RU Club,
“Our sincere condolences go to Malcolm’s family and friends with thanks to Tony Pratt and the Rochdale Ex-players’ Association for their assistance in telling the Malcolm Price story.”
Former Rochdale Hornets player, Brett Garside, paid tribute to him, saying: “Malcolm did a lot for the amateur game in Rochdale and was a very well-known gentleman to the all amateur teams. Speaking from personal experience you couldn’t have wished to meet a more polite and modest person than Malcolm. Myself, along with everyone else, would like to pass on our condolences to his daughter Elise Price and family.”