Ebbw Vale Northern Union Football Club

2025-11-25T19:39:34+00:00

Ebbw Vale NUFC was formed in July 1907 and joined the Northern Union at the beginning of the 1907/08 season. The club’s first Northern Union game was played on the 7th of September 1907 away at Keighley. Ebbw Vale lost the game by 26 points to 3.

At the end its first season in the Northern Union Ebbw Vale finished next to bottom of the league with just six wins and two draws from its thirty league games. However, after that disappointing first season Ebbw Vale’s playing record slowly began to improve and a number of its players received International recognition including Thomas Henry Jenkins who became the first player from a Welsh club to be selected for a Great Britain Lions Tour. In 1908/09 the Valians managed to finish in mid table in the Northern Union and also win the inaugural Welsh League. Ebbw Vale finished top of the Welsh League again in 1909/10, but unfortunately at the beginning of the 1910/11 season, with only two Welsh clubs left in the Northern Union, the Welsh League was abandoned.

As probably the most successful of the six Welsh clubs, Ebbw Vale managed to attract an average of 4,000 spectators to its home games.

However, it isn’t its relative success in the Northern Union that Ebbw Vale is best remembered for, but rather a defeat in the Northern Union Challenge Cup. Ebbw Vale drew junior club Beverley Beavers away in the 1909 competition and lost by 7 points to 2. Following that ‘giant killing act’ eighty six years would pass before another professional club lost a Challenge Cup tie against a junior club. In 1995 a club also called Beverley, but probably not a direct descendant of the Beavers, defeated Highfield by 27 points to 4.

Ebbw Vale NUFC 1909

Ebbw Vale continued to play in the Northern Union until the end of the 1911/12 season when a combination of declining gates and crippling travel expenses saw the club withdraw from the league. The club's last game at its home ground, Bridge End Field, was against York on the 20th of April 1912. Ebbw Vale won the game 17 points to nil.

To read more about Challenge Cup 'giant killers' check out 'Making Up The Numbers' Follow the link: here

Thomas Henry Jenkins.