Moomintroll

In late 19th century Huddersfield, rugby was very much the only game in town. The local paper (The Chronicle) regularly carried 2-3 pages of (rugby) football, matched only by the coverage of cricket in the summer months. "Association" barely warranted a mention, with the first Huddersfield club* lasting barely more than a couple of seasons. Huddersfield Town formed in 1908, but struggled for about a decade, despite joining the football league in 1910. Crowds were down to 3,000, which was considerably less than what the NU side could draw. Promotion to the top flight and their first FA Cup appearance in 1920 gave them a huge boost, with Herbert Chapman cementing their popularity with three successive league championships. *I may be misremembering, but I think Huddersfield AFC may have been a creation of the rugby team, looking to capitalise on the growth of Association.

Ripon had an Northern Union/RL club in the early years of the sport, though they were a bit of an outlier as teams like Skipton and Harrogate remained true to Rugby Union. League clubs in many small towns like Ripon, Goole and Otley struggled to deal with the financial pressure of pro rugby and either folded or went back to Union (as in the case of Otley).

May 2007 for me. Just 168 posts in that time (including this one).

The original Goole NU club were known as The Seaporters. They'll also play at the same venue as their predecessors.

Not sure, but The Knights won't have had much of a fan base until recently; it was only when de Mulder started bankrolling the club that they started to rise up the leagues. I think they refer to themselves as English club rugby's (sic) most promoted team.

Doncaster (early 1990s)

New Doncaster away kit. (Photo: Mark Whitelegge on FB)

Barnsley is an interesting case as they once had a couple of strong(ish) rugby clubs pre-schism. They had such a reputation for rough play that no-one wanted to play against them, and they disappeared shortly after. Barnsley being so close to footballing hotbed Sheffield didn't help either.

On the subject of RL in strange places, I saw this today. Would be interesting to follow this up

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Not sure about this season, but in recent years we've averaged 850 or so.

2,548 at Doncaster for the League 1 Playoff Final.

My dad grew up a short distance from Tattersfield. By the time he started watching them, The Dons had been in existence for around twenty (mostly lean) years. I began going to games around the time the club were changing from perpetual also-rans to something more competitive. My family had moved to West Yorkshire by this point, so we went to away games almost as regularly as home fixtures. I now live in Finland and rarely get to games, but I'll be cheering us on from my sofa next weekend.

3000 there according to the media outlet Nouvelles Dujour

It's the fifth edition of the world's northernmost Parkrun here in Oulu (Finland) this weekend. I've been alternating running with volunteering on a weekly basis so far. We started off with 38 participants in the first week, though this dropped to 10(!) on week three due to a clash with the city's popular marathon/half/10k event. I might wear my Dons top tomorrow.