bowes

Tameside Borough became Manchester Knights in summer (forced to change their name for propaganda reasons, they never played in Manchester) Portico Vine are reforming for the 2012 North West Men's League.

What division were Biddulph for their few games and assume you meant they joined 87-88 if they joined with South London (makes sense as MASWARLA champions). Goes to show the pressure for a better league was always there for non heartland teams.

Back to South London in the NWCL they'd applied for the inaugural BARLA National League but got turned down (27 applications for 10 places) so decided it would be a stepping stone. Not surprisingly travel was the killer.

Crewe seem to have switched to the Mercian League in 1992-93 as late entrants and probably played in it 1993-94 but if they weren't NWCL in 1994-95 they'd folded. 1992-93 Mercian League was Birmingham, West Midlands Police, Crewe, Redditch Halcyon and Coventry Students. Wolverhampton Borough entered but dropped out midseason. I don't have the information on the second season of this short lived league.

Leigh Shamrock I think were briefly semi pro in the Lancashire second competition around the turn of the last century before it closed down so had a long history.

Redhill got kicked out of the NCL for thuggery something like 2002 or 2003 and didn't last much longer.

North Wales Coasters and Wrexham joined it. Must have been a dodgy source saying Telford All Blacks played NWCL although maybe was just juniors before they had the Shropshire Junior League (where Birmingham played their juniors). Do you know if Crewe played NWCL after the Mercian League folded or if that was the end of them? Or in fact if they played in it before they joined the Midlands and South West League (either 1989 or 1990)?

British Aerospace played in the BARLA National League in the 1989/90 and 1990/91 seasons.

Yeah the list also missed the Warrington League off for some reason. The Halifax and Huddersfield League (which included Oldham and Rochdale sides) merged with the Bradford League to form the Pennine League. Quite a lot of out of town sides in leagues, Heworth and Dewsbury Celtic both played in the Leeds League for example.

Biddulph switched to the Midlands and South West League which they won in 1986-87. Not sure if they entered in 87-88 but they definitely weren't in 88-89. They did play in the Staffordshire League (presumably had reserves in it when they played elsewhere) though that only had 4 clubs (Biddulph, Newcastle, Kidsgrove Crusaders and North Staffordshire Polytechnic) and the last year or two was down to 3 teams after Kidsgrove folded. They basically entered a combined Stoke team into the 1990-91 MASWARLA who won division 1 (the lower division), I don't know if they played a second season but they were definitely gone by the 1992-93 season. They actually claimed they were joining the pro leagues! I'd heard of South London in NWCL, though still bizarre. Telford All Blacks were the other expansion team in it though ended up switching to East Midlands League and moving juniors to the Shropshire League.

Some non heartland clubs from unusually small locations: Biddulph Countesthorpe Arley Dursley Bulford Sedgemoor Most, if not all, were either based around miners or military

Think the amateur league carried on til the 30s. Based mainly around the factories. Though I don't have many of the MASWARLA lineups to see which clubs there were then unfortunately

Apparently there was a rugby league club in a mining village called Arley near Coventry at some point, though I can't find any information about them so can't confirm it.

Basically the Pennine League took the top clubs from the Yorkshire League (apart from Hunslet Warriors who went NCL and Fryston for some reason I'm not aware) and as division 1 champions that included Ossett Trinity. Basically the Premier Division had failed due to huge standard gaps and loads of sides dropping out every year so they needed to sort out the mess.

If you want to see how emphatic the BARLA boom was this is probably the best place: http://www.nwcoaarl.org.uk/ In 1975 when the North Western Counties League was formed it had just 3 divisions (it didn't then cover Barrow, Oldham or Rochdale but still that was all the amateur rugby league from the rest of Lancashire then!) However, this went up: 4 divisions 1977 5 divisions 1978 6 divisions 1981 7 divisions 1982 8 divisions 1984 9 divisions 1986 10 divisions 1987 Wow! it is now back down to 7 divisions but bear in mind there's now the National Conference League, Rugby League Conference and North West Merit League

If you're wondering why I suddenly got a load of information: http://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php/topic/87094-defunct-winners/ Couldn't link it earlier on my Ipod The Kingston upon Hull league in 1975-76 consisted of Ace Amateurs Albion Bass North Beecroft & Wightman Birds Eye Broady's Cawoods City Transport Concorde Corporation Telephones Fenners Grange Hellyers Hull Co-op Ideal Standard Metal Box Mysons Newlander Caravans NDLB Papropack Reckitts Sizers Tetleys Van Leer 24 teams, guessing that's 2 or 3 divisions Now there's: Premier Division: West Hull Lions Skirlaugh Bulls Norland Sharks Bransholme Dales Parkers Hull Dockers 'A' Hull Wyke East Hull Dragons Division 1: Duke Embassy Lambwath Lions Holderness Vikings Reckitt's Bilton Sully's Haworth Park Hull Isberg Cottingham Tigers Norland Sharks 'A' Beverley Myton Warriors 'A' Fenners GW Horners Obviously now West Hull, East Hull, Hull Dockers, Skirlaugh and Myton Warriors play National Conference League. Interestingly half the Premier Division is NCL reserve sides which will be interesting when they have to follow the first teams to summer (Assuming this passes at the NCL) A few names still here after all that time, though I couldn't tell exactly how many clubs are still here and how many are new as the names have changed so much.

Cumberland and 'Manchester' still had works leagues when BARLA was formed. Seems bizarre now but guess things have changed. There wasn't much emphasis on juniors then which I guess is the logical consequence of works and pub teams.

No Beecroft & Wightman did

Show's how important your industry was to your life that even your rugby league club was dictated by your industry, though I don't think it was as strong outside Hull

You're right, makes more sense given the D. West Hull were Cawoods and East Hull were Mysons. Here's one though: Ideal Standard merged with Newland to form Stelrad. Stelrad merged with Ace Amateurs to form Ideal ABI. Ideal ABI merged with Isberg Celtic to form Ideal Isberg. They have since rebranded as Hull Isberg and despite recent success are now in the Hull division 1 (the lower of the 2 Hull divisions)!

Featherstone Miners Welfare merged in at some point I believe as well. Hunslet Warriors were a 3 way merger as well.

NDLB (think that's the right initials) are now West Hull I believe. Think Ace Amateurs were Hull but can't remember if they became anyone

As far as I know yes. Up til at least the late 1920s non-league Lancashire clubs could enter the professional reserve grade and there was a Yorkshire Senior League as well (which was first teams) for clubs to step up to from the district leagues. When this stopped I don't know, I just can't find a record of it after that. Featherstone and Castleford joined from the Yorkshire Senior League and Wigan Highfield from the Lancashire Combination (i.e. reserve grade) all in the 1920s but would have thought it had long since gone by the 40s/50s. In the first season of BARLA (1973-74) only the following playing leagues: Leeds (Saturday and Sunday, the latter 11-a-side) York (Saturday and Sunday, though only 2 clubs in the Saturday league!) Castleford and Wakefield (Sunday) Halifax & Huddersfield Hull Manchester Barrow Cumberland Southern (3 clubs!) http://www.totalrl.com/index.php?showtopic=193852 More on there and the solution to the problem Juniors was just: Hull Juniors (unsure which age) Leeds Juniors (Under 19, under 17, under 16) Manchester Under 17 Cumberland (Under 17s and Under 19s) Barrow (Under 17s and 19s)

Basically before BARLA were formed in 1973 the amateur game was dying and many of the clubs left had no league to play in especially in Lancashire (only the Warrington League, Manchester League and Barrow League still existed and I think even the Manchester League may have just folded by then), Yorkshire merged leagues and/or ran on Sundays to keep something together. Outside of the heartlands there were just 3 clubs, all amateur and all from London playing in the Southern ARL (now London ARL). Usually if you wanted to enter a league you'd usually have to play the top local amateur sides from the start. BARLA merged the leagues into viable competitions and got loads of new clubs forming especially in the 1980s boom (much of this outside the heartlands), unfortunately neglect eventually set in.

Those were the days when there was nothing between the professional league (and its reserve grade) and town leagues which seems strange now. Some clubs have renamed or merged so could still be around in some form but I'm not sure if any of them are, the 1970s bottleneck is a large factor in why there's relatively few really old amateur clubs. Some of my favourite old club names are Portobello Playboys and Basingstoke Beasts.