The Rugby League Challenge Cup started life as the Northern Union Challenge Cup in 1897. The competition was re-named the Rugby League Challenge Cup in 1922 when the Northern Union became Rugby Football League. Over the years the format of the competition has changed a number of times, but apart the 1993 and 1994 competitions, there have always been junior/amateur clubs included in the first or preliminary round draw.
Mansfield Marksman rugby league club made an application to join the professional ranks in 1984 with; it seemed, at the time, realistic expectations.
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The current Barnsley rugby union club was founded in 1902
St John Fisher played Hunslet Parkside in the Yorkshire Youth Under 19 Cup Final on the 18th of December 1982.
Oakwood rugby union club was formed in 1988 as the result of a merger between Leeds Chirons rugby union club and Kitson College rugby union club.
Oakwood struggled from the word go and during the two seasons it was in existence only won two games.
The story of Rossington Hornets rugby union club
Sheffield Eagles first league game took place at Owlerton Stadium on Sunday the 2nd of September 1984
The 1907/08 New Zealand tour of Australia and Great Britain arrived in York on the 29th January 1908.
In 1951 Bramley rugby union club had been in existence for fifty years.
In the 1970s Doncaster rugby league club played at Tatters Field on Bentley Road.
Bob Oakes was probably the most influential figure in Yorkshire rugby union in the last century.
I wonder if joining a rugby club is as easy, these days, as it was in the 1960s.
Charles Waller, who joined Leeds Chirons in 1967, never played a game for the club, as when he first became involved he was well past the state retirement age. His role was to look after the dressing rooms, run the bath, make the after match cups of tea and clean up after everyone had gone.
The New Zealand Universities team was the first student representative side to tour the UK.
There have been many attempts to establish rugby league clubs in towns and cities that could be described today as outside the ‘heartlands’ of the game. In the case of Cardiff City post World War Two that would be true. However, in the early years of the Twentieth Century, following the formation of the Northern Union, South Wales did have significant Northern Union activity and active professional clubs.
On Wednesday 6th April 1983 Kent Invicta Rugby League Football Club was accepted as a member of the Rugby Football League and following a hectic few months of preparation played its first game in Division Two on Sunday 21st August 1983.
During World War Two rugby league players in the Services were allowed to take part in Services rugby union games against other Services teams and also against clubs, but were not ‘officially’ allowed to take part in club versus club fixtures.
The story of George Teal who played for Leeds Education Offices Sports Club and Leeds Chirons.
The 1919/20 Challenge Cup competition saw the first and only appearance in the first round proper of Healey Street Adults. This Oldham based club were drawn against Wigan, at Central Park, a very difficult proposition for any junior outfit particularly as Wigan took the tie very seriously and fielded a nearly full strength team. Healey Street also had a strong team on duty including Thomas Steele who, as a Sergeant in the 1st Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, had received the Victoria Cross in 1917 for conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty.
Tadcaster has a population of over 7,000, a secondary school that plays rugby, but no rugby club. That hasn't always been the case as there was a rugby club in Tadcaster in the 1930s as well as one in the 1960s.
Over recent years International rugby league has been played in a number of towns and cities that wouldn't be considered to be in the 'heartlands' of the game.
The version of football that we know today as rugby first became established in the Spen Valley in the early 1870s when the Heckmondwike club was formed. Cleckheaton Football Club followed in 1875, with Liversedge beginning activities in 1877.