Jim Butterick recalls: “As a teenager I used to go to the Oulton-with-Woodlesford Youth Club which was situated in a Nissan hut just lower down from the Oulton-with-Woodlesford Miners’ Welfare. The club was held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and we paid 6d a time to go. We played table tennis and pool as well as danced to the latest rock and roll sounds from the record player. The club leader was a chap called Bob Bajic who I believe worked at Water Haigh pit. He lived with his wife and son on the Coal Board estate so was handily placed to run the youth club. Bob organised us as a football team from the late 1950’s. The pitch ran parallel with Aberford Road but is now mostly covered by the Rothwell Sports Centre car park. We did quite well playing other local youth clubs and joined the Red Triangle League Division 1E as we outgrew the youth club. Charlie Cornish looked after us and we had a very rude awakening in our first open-age encounter where we were soundly thrashed by Great Preston 10-0 on their ground. Eventually we changed our name to Woodlesford United and played in the West Yorkshire League on the a new pitch behind the Midland Hotel.”
