A Barley Mow Experience

2025-08-26T18:13:17+01:00

In the early 1960s there was no other rugby league ground quite like the Barley Mow, a tiny ground in a Leeds suburb that was named after the public house where the players changed.

Watching a Bramley home game at the Barley Mow was often an unforgettable experience for a number of reasons and some of those reasons had nothing to do with what was happening on the field.

I was an occasional visitor to the Barley Mow and after paying my entrance fee (probably sixpence for a schoolboy) I then faced a couple of challenges. The first was trying to find a spot on the terrace where I could actually see all the action on the field. The second was deciding where to stand if it started raining. There was very little cover for spectators on a ground that, despite its ramshackle appearance, certainly did have a unique atmosphere.

I was a Bradford Northern supporter in the 1960s and so probably only managed to attend two or three games at the Barley Mow, but one in particular, Bramley versus Halifax, played on the 20th of January 1962, is still memorable after over sixty years.

I don't recall very much of the action on the field, but I can certainly remember the players entering the ground from the changing rooms in the Barley Mow plus Bramley full back Jonny Wilson's major contribution to the game.

Jonny Wilson won the match for Bramley with the three penalty goals that made up the 6-0 score line. Two of the goals were kicked from the half way line, a remarkable achievement on a muddy pitch with a heavy ball. Wilson also kicked a number of huge touch finders which kept Halifax penned in their own half for much of the eighty minutes. Jonny Wilson's main contribution to the game against Halifax was his kicking as he rarely ran with the ball, but as his goal kicks won the game, and probably a number of others that season, he was certainly a valuable member of the Bramley team.

There were 2,870 spectators at the Barley Mow on that cold winter afternoon, an attendance that many of today's Championship clubs would be very happy with although, the receipts of £267 would certainly not cover the match expenses of a Championship club in 2025.

The teams that played in the game were those printed in the programme apart from the Bramley loose forward who was a guy called Yeomans. You will, of course notice from the programme that the loose forward had the number fourteen on his back. In the days before substitutes most clubs gave their loose forward the number fourteen shirt, Bramley and Halifax were no exceptions.