Rugby League History

1895
On Thursday 29th August, 21 leading rugby union clubs from both sides of the Pennines met here at The George Hotel to discuss their dispute with the RFU over compensating working class players for wages lost whilst playing the game.

Their momentous decision was to set up the Northern Rugby Football Union – the forerunner to the Rugby League of today. Of the clubs at that meeting, Dewsbury backed out for the moment, but two Cheshire clubs, Stockport and Runcorn had joined up by the time the new code played its first games on 7th September.

1896
The Bradford club Manningham, became the first Champions, winning 33 of their 42 games to beat Halifax by a single point. Manningham also won the Yorkshire Senior Competition, with Runcorn the first winner of the Lancashire equivalent, for clubs West of the Pennines.

Despite that start, Manningham were a short lived force in the game. They converted to association football in 1903 and became Bradford City.

1897
The Challenge Cup is established and proves a success from the start. In the first final, the Gallant Youths of Batley played St Helens at Headingley, although neither had performed well in the league; Batley became the first winners, beating Saints 10-3, in front of a crowd of 13,492. Rugby League’s most durable tradition was born.

1897
From the very start, the new game has to strive to make itself more attractive to paying spectators. The first major rule change was the abolition of line-outs which had done little to encourage open play. They were replaced by a system of punting the ball back into play from the touch-line.

1898
The Northern Union cautiously legalises open professionalism, acknowledging that many clubs are already paying their players. The professionalism is strictly part-time, with players obliged to have other ‘proper’ jobs. Such occupations as billiard marker or pub waiter did not qualify, the rules made clear.

1901
The experiment with the punt-out ends after only four years. In future, play will be re-started with a scrum after the ball goes out of play.

1906
The game as we know it starts to take recognisable shape. After a plan for 12-a-side is rejected, teams are reduced from 15 to 13 players – rugby league is the only team sport to adopt this supposedly unlucky number – to allow more room for creative play. The early form of play-the-ball is introduced as the game’s characteristic way of re-starting play after a tackle.

1907
Northern Union goes international when a Post Office clerk in New Zealand, Albert Henry Baskerville, accidentally reads about the new game’s progress in England. Fired with enthusiasm, he organises a touring side branded the ‘All Golds’ in their homeland because of their open professionalism.

They play under rugby union rules in Sydney on their way to Britain and persuade Australia’s greatest player Dally Messenger to join them on tour.

They win the game’s first Test series 2-1, but Baskerville dies of pneumonia on the way home at the age of 25.

1908
The New South Wales Rugby League sets up an eight team competition after a row with the Australian Rugby Union over compensation for injured players. The first Premiership is won by South Sydney, the leading club throughout much of the game’s history down under.

Australia tour Britain for the first time, losing more games than they win and failing to win any of the Tests which were staged in an early bid for national exposure, at Queens Park Rangers, Newcastle and Aston Villa.

1908
Hunslet become the first club to win all four trophies available to them – the Championship, the Challenge Cup, the Yorkshire Cup and the Yorkshire League. Powered by a much feared pack known as the Terrible Six, Hunslet were led by Albert Goldthorpe, already in his late 30s but a dominant figure in the early years of the code.

1910
The Lions tour Australia for the first time, captained by Jim Lomas and winning their Tests in Sydney and Brisbane. The pioneering tourists also beat combined Australasian sides in two other internationals and then win their first Test in New Zealand.

1914
The second Lions tour down under becomes the stuff of legend. After sharing the first two Tests, Great Britain were reduced to ten fit men in the decider at Sydney, but still managed to hang on for a 14-6 victory. It was dubbed Rorker’s Drift Test, after a battle in the Boer War and it remains one of rugby league’s most famous epics.

1915
Huddersfield’s ‘Team of All the Talents’ becomes only the second to win all four cups. Led by the 1914 team captain, Harold Wagstaffe, Huddersfield are the dominant team of the time, winning 13 trophies in the five years leading up to the First World War. Among their stars was Albert Rosenfield who scored 80 tries in 1913-14, a record which still stands.

1921
Leeds create a sensation by making the winger Harold Buck the first man to be transferred for a £1000 fee – including a player in part exchange according to some sources – when they signed him from Hunslet.

This beat the £600 that Hull paid Hunslet for the legendary Billy Batten in 1912 and remained the record until Stanley Smith’s transfer from Wakefield to Leeds in 1929.

1922
The game gets rid of the misleading and parochial title of Northern Union that it had carried since the breakaway in 1895. Britain follows the Australian example by adopting the title of the Rugby Football League.

1928
Swinton become the third and last side to win all four cups.

The Lions were a side with a strong Welsh presence, with players like Bryn Evans and Billo Rees as well as the locally born goal-kicking forward, Martin Hodgson who still holds the long distance record with a kick of over 77 yards.

By the time they were in their pomp, the League included relative newcomers Featherstone, Castleford and Wigan Highfield.

1929
The game takes one of its boldest steps by taking the Challenge Cup final to London. Crystal Palace and White City both wanted the match, but the decision was made to hold it at Wembley, with Wigan and Dewsbury earning the right to be the first finalists at the stadium.

Wigan’s Syd Abram scored the first try at Wembley as they won 13-2 and Jim Sulllivan lifted the trophy.

1933
London Highfield become the first club to be established in the capital, playing at White City. They last just one year and are followed by Acton & Willesdon and Streatham & Mitcham. Both ventures are short lived, but are a sign of things to come.

1933
On New Year’s Eve, England and Australia play in Paris – the first game of rugby league in France. The French had been excluded from the rugby union Five Nations amid allegations of professionalism, so the country was receptive to the new game.

The match was one sided, with Australia winning 63-13 in front of a crowd of 5,000, but the seed was sown.

1934
Jean Galia leads France on a six match tour of England and they record their one win at Hull.

France plays its first international a 32-21 defeat by England in Paris. Salford tour France and earn the nickname of ‘Les Diables Rouges’ – the Red Devils.

1941
French rugby league becomes a casualty of the War when the puppet Vichy government bans the game because of its links with the Allies. The code’s funds and property are all confiscated, but rugby union is allowed to carry on unscathed and to regain much of the ground it had lost to Rugby a XIII.

1945
A spindly, strapped up winger named Brian Bevan makes his debut for Warrington after being rejected by Leeds.

Over the next 16 seasons he scored 740 tries for the club in 620 games. His career total was 796, more than 200 ahead of his nearest rival – but he never played for his native Australia.

1946
The most famous tour of all, as the Lions sail to Australia on HMS Indomitable, stoking the boilers to keep fit.

After a five day train journey across Australia, Gus Risman’s team retain the Ashes, drawing one and winning two Tests.

1950
An Italian team from Turin tours the North of England. Italy later runs a domestic competition and stages matches against Australia, but activity there fizzles out in 1962.

1951
One of the most remarkable achievements in the history of the game, as just a decade after being wound up, France win their first series in Australia.

That French side, led by the chain smoking full-back Puig Aubert, is still revered in Australia where they repeated the feat by winning again in 1955.

1953
Billy Boston, a young Welshman doing his National Service in the Royal Signals makes his debut for Wigan.

He tours Australia after a handful of rugby league games and goes on to become Britain’s most prolific try scorer and second only to Bevan in the game’s history.

The American All-Stars tour Australia.

1954
An unforgettable day for the game, as an official crowd of 102,569 pack into Odsal for the Challenge Cup final replay between Warrington and Halifax. Many more manage to scramble their way into the ground to see Warrington win 8-4.

The traffic jams that night, mainly of buses and charabancs are said to have stretched back to Oldham.

1954
Great Britain win first World Cup, held in and largely at the instigation of France.

Dave Valentine’s side, without most of the current first choice internationals was not fancied to do well, but beat Australia and New Zealand in its qualifying matches.

This set up a final against France in Paris which Great Britain won 16-12.

1956
St George win the first of 11 Premierships in a row in Australia. With superb players like Reg Gasnier and Johnny Raper, they dominate the game in a way that no club, on either side of the world, has ever quite matched.

1958
One of the most famous matches of all time, the Battle of Brisbane.

The Lions already beaten in the first Test, suffered a series of crippling injuries, but their captain Alan Prescott played on with a broken arm to inspire a 25-18 victory.

That lifted the tourists, including a 19 year old Alex Murphy, to clinch the series by winning the decider 40-17.

1960
After losing it to Australia in 1957, Great Britain regain the World Cup when it is played on home soil. The tournament is decided on a league system and Eric Ashton lifts the trophy after a 10-3 victory in a slog in the mud at Odsal.

1964
Rugby league is an innovator with the introduction of substitutes. At first they are only allowed in the case of injuries and before half time, but the process has started that will make league what it is now – a 17 man game.

1966
Another major change as the game reacts to negative play by introducing the negative tackle rule.

At first teams are limited to four tackles before play restarts with a scrum. The Southern hemisphere adopts the rule the following year, but it becomes six-tackle rugby in 1972.

1967
Rugby league is the pace setter again, adopting Sunday as its main match day, years ahead of other sports in a bid to reverse declining attendances.

Bradford Northern and Leigh are the first to stage matches on a Sunday that December, although there was opposition from the Sunday Observance lobby.

1968
Perhaps the most memorable of all Wembley occasions, the Watersplash final was played despite a down pour that saturated the pitch and ruined the game as far as controlled rugby was concerned.

It still managed to produce the most dramatic of finishes, when the Lance Todd Trophy winner as man of the match, Don Fox had an easy conversion to win it for Wakefield, but missed it to leave Leeds 11-10 winners.

The commentator Eddie Waring simply said ‘poor lad’ and summed it up perfectly.

1970
Great Britain, with emerging stars like Roger Millward and Malcolm Reilly, lose their first Test in Australia but win the next two to claim the Ashes for the last time in the 20th century.

Despite that, the World Cup later that year attracts poor crowds in England as Australia win a bad-tempered final at Headingley. A year later, New Zealand wins a series in Britain for the first time.

1972
Great Britain regain the World Cup in France. Their captain Clive Sullivan, scores a brilliant long distance try in the final in Lyon as they draw 10 all with Australia after extra time.

This is enough to clinch the trophy because of Britain’s superior record in the qualifying games.

1973
The second breakaway in the game’s history, with the British Amateur Rugby League Association setting itself up to run the sport at grass-roots level after complaining of neglect by the RFL.

For almost 30 years, until a formal re-unification, BARLA from its base in Huddersfield, presides over a growth in playing numbers. It also builds up a proud record of organising tours to other countries, where the game is showing signs of developing.

In the professional game, a one-division system is abandoned for the last time.

1974
Papua New Guinea, the one country where rugby league is indisputably the national sport, are admitted to the game’s International Federation.

1975
Wales and England field separate teams in the World Cup, played over several months in both hemispheres.

Australia take the trophy by finishing one point ahead of England in the final league table.

1980
International headlines as a gap of almost 50 years is bridged by the establishment of a new club in London – Fulham.

More than 9,500 see them play their first game and beat recently relegated Wigan. Fulham are promoted at the end of the first season and, after a series of ups and downs and changes of home, are still flying the flag in the capital as the London Broncos.

1980
Australia establishes the State of Origin format, where Queensland and New South Wales born players face each other.

They call it ‘State against state; mate against mate’ and it immediately catches the imagination.

From 1982 onwards, it is played as a three match series and is recognised as the fiercest, toughest rugby in the world.

1982
Australia’s ‘Invincibles’ become the first to go through a Kangaroo tour unbeaten.

Captained by Max Krilich, they give British crowds their first sight of great players like Mal Meninga, Wally Lewis, Brett Kenny and Peter Sterling.

1983
The international transfer ban is lifted allowing players like the 1982 Kangaroos to play in England.

The character of the game changes further with the introduction of the turn-over possession on the sixth tackle, drastically reducing the number of scrums. The Sin Bin is introduced for offences that do not merit a sending off.

1987
The Papua New Guinea Kumuls stage their first full Test playing tour of Britain, after playing BARLA opposition in 1979. They lose their Test 42-0 at Central Park Wigan.

1988
Wigan start their run of eight Challenge Cup final victories, beating Halifax 32-12.

The modern version of the Team of All the Talents, featuring players like Ellery Hanley, Andy Gregory and Shaun Edwards ruled the roost in domestic competition for a decade, winning three World Cup titles in the process.

1991
Fulham and Rydale York tour Russia to assist in the exciting development of the sport there. Russia goes on to appear in the 2000 World Cup and to enter club sides in the Challenge Cup.

1995
The game’s centenary is celebrated by reviving the World Cup in Britain, Australia beating England 16-8 in the final at Wembley.

Fiji, Tonga, South Africa and Western Samoa join the established nations in a successful tournament, whilst Ireland, Scotland, the USA, Russia, the Cook Islands, Moldova and Morocco all compete in an Emerging Nations World Cup.

1995
The game is turned upside down. As part of the struggle for television rights in Australia, the RFL in Britain is offered £87 million by News Corporation to set up Super League.

The game agrees to switch to a Summer season, with Paris St Germain joining leading British clubs in a 14 team competition, after proposals for mergers are scrapped amid determined resistance.

1996
Super League kicks off its first season of Summer rugby, with Paris beating Sheffield Eagles 30-24 in front of 17,873 at the Charlety Stadium.

Paris last just two years, but a new era has opened. St Helens win the inaugural Super League title, decided on league points rather than in a Grand Final.