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Rugby History Thread


Padge

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On 1/1/2017 at 10:55 AM, bowes said:

Unlike the Lancashire line ups these aren't final positions. Also I can't vouch for the accuracy of these to the same extent as the Lancashire ones as they're taken from many different sources (in particular the 1899-1900 season)

 

1898-99

Yorkshire Second Competition (East)

Featherstone

Goole

Hull Kingston Rovers

Kinsley

Normanton

Outwood Parish Church

Ripon

Rothwell

York

 

Yorkshire Second Competition (West)

Birstall

Bowling

Dewsbury

Eastmoor

Elland

Idle

Luddendenfoot

Morley

Todmorden

 

Hull Kingston Rovers were overall champions and defeated Heckmondwike to take their place in the senior competition

 

1899-1900

Yorkshire Second Competition (East)

Alverthorpe

Eastmoor

Featherstone

Goole

Kinsley

Normanton

Ossett

Outwood Parish Church

Pontefract

Rothwell

York

 

Yorkshire Second Competition (West)

Birstall

Dewsbury

Elland

Hebden Bridge

Heckmondwike

Idle

Kirkstall

Luddendenfoot

Shipley

Sowerby Bridge

Todmorden

Windhill

 

Normanton were overall champions but lost to Liversedge in the promotion/relegation match

 

 

1900-01

Yorkshire Second Competition (East)

Alverthorpe

Eastmoor

Featherstone

Goole

Kinsley

Kirkstall

Normanton

Ossett

Outwood Parish Church

Pontefract

York

York Melbourne

 

Yorkshire Second Competition (West)

Bingley

Dewsbury (started the season in the East division)

Hebden Bridge

Heckmondwike

Idle

Keighley

Otley

Sowerby Bridge

Shipley

Todmorden

Windhill

Birstall (withdrew midseason)

Luddendenfoot (withdrew midseason)

Elland (failed to start the season)

 

Teams in bold elected to the Yorkshire Senior Competition. I don't know the fate of all these clubs but a single division was formed which ended up named the Yorkshire Senior Competition that lasted for a while as a non-league semi-professional competition

Great lists. Thanks. What happened in Yorkshire in 1897/98 season?

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1 hour ago, marklaspalmas said:

Great lists. Thanks. What happened in Yorkshire in 1897/98 season?

Basically the lower division Yorkshire based clubs were slower to switch to Northern Union than the Lancashire based ones. This is in large part due to the split from rugby union being for different reasons either side of the Pennines. West of the Pennines the split was primarily due to professionalism and there were close ties between elite clubs and those in lower divisions. In Yorkshire a major factor was the top division clubs wanting a closed shop league, whilst the RFU wanted to introduce promotion and relegation.

In short there may have been local competitions but there was no second competition that season.

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10 minutes ago, bowes said:

Basically the lower division Yorkshire based clubs were slower to switch to Northern Union than the Lancashire based ones. This is in large part due to the split from rugby union being for different reasons either side of the Pennines. West of the Pennines the split was primarily due to professionalism and there were close ties between elite clubs and those in lower divisions. In Yorkshire a major factor was the top division clubs wanting a closed shop league, whilst the RFU wanted to introduce promotion and relegation.

In short there may have been local competitions but there was no second competition that season.

Interesting. There was more solidarity between clubs in Lancashire? Perhaps also this led to a greater 'wastage' as more fledgling NU clubs seemed to disappear in Lancashire rather than Yorkshire. Perhaps not.

In Yorkshire, are you saying that this push for P&R came pre 1895? I thought the RFU wanted nothing to do with any sort of 'league'. Or do you mean the NU?

This whole period just seems to be an absolutely vital one in terms of the growth and development of RL. Obviously many mistakes were made by people & clubs working at cross purposes without really understanding what they were doing.

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12 minutes ago, marklaspalmas said:

Interesting. There was more solidarity between clubs in Lancashire? Perhaps also this led to a greater 'wastage' as more fledgling NU clubs seemed to disappear in Lancashire rather than Yorkshire. Perhaps not.

In Yorkshire, are you saying that this push for P&R came pre 1895? I thought the RFU wanted nothing to do with any sort of 'league'. Or do you mean the NU?

This whole period just seems to be an absolutely vital one in terms of the growth and development of RL. Obviously many mistakes were made by people & clubs working at cross purposes without really understanding what they were doing.

They had a league structure in rugby union at the time before rugby league was formed but only in the north. Yorkshire had a 12 team league (the 11 Northern Union founders plus Dewsbury) and did have lower leagues. The bottom two teams in the top league had to apply for re-election and when Morley and Castleford (top two in the Second Competition) had their bid for promotion knocked back they appealed to the RFU. I think the RFU said they'd shut the league down unless they allowed Morley and Castleford in.

Lancashire had smaller leagues but some kind of promotion and relegation (based on playoffs like northern union adopted I believe). However, these leagues collapsed quite rapidly after the northern union was founded.

I think Lancashire saw more wastage of teams in part because clubs were based in areas too small to support professionalism.

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3 hours ago, bowes said:

Basically the lower division Yorkshire based clubs were slower to switch to Northern Union than the Lancashire based ones. This is in large part due to the split from rugby union being for different reasons either side of the Pennines. West of the Pennines the split was primarily due to professionalism and there were close ties between elite clubs and those in lower divisions. In Yorkshire a major factor was the top division clubs wanting a closed shop league, whilst the RFU wanted to introduce promotion and relegation.

In short there may have been local competitions but there was no second competition that season.

 

Lancashire I thought was the first to go to war with their Union over P&R, they were the first to set up a league and I thought they were the first to have the dispute, which is what the split was more about than money.

 

I haven't checked so may have got it wrong way around but that is from memory my take.

 

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This country's wealth was created by men in overalls, it was destroyed by men in suits.

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Why are people calling the game before 1895 Rugby Union - Surely it was only Rugby football? It does a dis-service to everything (games, players, heritage) leading up to the split, and makes out that a new game (on the pitch) was born. This is not true as the sports were virtually identical for several years after 1895 (I recall Padge saying a few years back that there was only one insignificant rule change to do with the scrum retirement??) RU has also bifurcated from the original game of Rugby common to both games

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31 minutes ago, Padge said:

 

Lancashire I thought was the first to go to war with their Union over P&R, they were the first to set up a league and I thought they were the first to have the dispute, which is what the split was more about than money.

The Lancashire & Cheshire Unions both suspended all cups and other competitions in the 1880s, so the clubs which wanted competitions formed their West Lancashire & Border Towns Union, which also played inter-county fixtures. In the first year, Warrington beat Runcorn at Widnes in the semi-final in front of a crowd estimated as larger than the FA Cup final which was played on the same day. They then ran a league competiton until 1895. The Northern Union clubs (Saints, Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn etc.) continued to play a SW Lancs & Border Towns competition for some years after the split.

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31 minutes ago, Lobbygobbler said:

Why are people calling the game before 1895 Rugby Union - Surely it was only Rugby football? It does a dis-service to everything (games, players, heritage) leading up to the split, and makes out that a new game (on the pitch) was born. This is not true as the sports were virtually identical for several years after 1895 (I recall Padge saying a few years back that there was only one insignificant rule change to do with the scrum retirement??) RU has also bifurcated from the original game of Rugby common to both games

Its bifurcation introduced the title Union. Its original  rule book was titled Rules of the Rugby Football Union, separate to that of Rugby (school) football which of course existed alongside the Union code. Colloquially it was probably referred to only as football in those early years as much as anything.

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47 minutes ago, Lobbygobbler said:

Why are people calling the game before 1895 Rugby Union - Surely it was only Rugby football? It does a dis-service to everything (games, players, heritage) leading up to the split, and makes out that a new game (on the pitch) was born. This is not true as the sports were virtually identical for several years after 1895 (I recall Padge saying a few years back that there was only one insignificant rule change to do with the scrum retirement??) RU has also bifurcated from the original game of Rugby common to both games

 

Until 1863 we basically had football, in 1863 a group of schools, universities etc. formed an association to play under common rules, prior to this you played under the home clubs rules. This introduced Association Football Rules, from where soccer came from, a term despised by soccer lovers now but has been the short name of the game for over 160 years. 

The other schools universities etc. continued playing as they did, but with more and more leaning towards the Rugby School set of rules. In 1871 with more and more 'clubs' joining soccer the schools playing to Rugby rules decided to from their own association, The Rugby Football Union.

The thing is that if you read early newspaper reports from games around this time you find that there is a general heading, usually Football News, then there is a distinction between which rules the game was played under.

Football was a generic term, and certainly in Wigan when I was attending games well into the 1980s, going to the football meant going to the rugby, if you were going to another sport with a round ball it was going to the soccer.

So what you have is football, with a distinction made by whose rules you are playing under.

The 1895 split was quite different in that both sides of the split where playing the same rules, they were playing Rugby rules as opposed to the now completely different association rules which had been distinct anyway due to the outlawing of hacking.

It was a split in games or rules but a split in governing bodies, its a bit like boxing with different factions offering different prizes.

As Lobby points out, there was one very small change to the rules after the split but essentially it was the same game, different governing body.

The war that ensued afterwards was over the use of the word Rugby as the RFU was aggrieved that 'another sport' could use their name. I am sure soccer would have been miffed if we decided to call ourselves The Northern Football Association.

However the sport we now have was born of Rugby Union Rules, and the sport before 1895 was referred to as Rugby Union, not just rugby ( I have a quote from I think the Times pre-1895 addressing it a such), from 1871 to 1895 there was a period of the game being called 'Football Rugby Rules' or Rugby Union Rules and occasionally Rugby Union.

The lable of Union was there before 1895 even if the RFU like to pretend it wasn't.

 

Edited by Padge

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Radio 5 Live: Saturday 14 April 2007

Dave Whelan "In Wigan rugby will always be king"

 

This country's wealth was created by men in overalls, it was destroyed by men in suits.

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2 minutes ago, Bearman said:

Soccer was based on Cambridge University rules. 

 

They were the basis of the rules, they were not taken as a given, most clubs who formed the association were already playing to a close approximation to those rules, the sticking point was hacking.

 

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Radio 5 Live: Saturday 14 April 2007

Dave Whelan "In Wigan rugby will always be king"

 

This country's wealth was created by men in overalls, it was destroyed by men in suits.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Four well-preserved gentlemen - Ian Lucas, Graham Steadman, David Lyon and Deryck Fox.

C3SsXIMWEAAziO-.jpg

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I see Dave  Lyon regularly at work, top bloke. Is Ian Lucas still running an antiques business?

 

Visit my photography site www.padge.smugmug.com

Radio 5 Live: Saturday 14 April 2007

Dave Whelan "In Wigan rugby will always be king"

 

This country's wealth was created by men in overalls, it was destroyed by men in suits.

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On 1/7/2017 at 7:14 PM, Lobbygobbler said:

Why are people calling the game before 1895 Rugby Union - Surely it was only Rugby football? It does a dis-service to everything (games, players, heritage) leading up to the split, and makes out that a new game (on the pitch) was born. This is not true as the sports were virtually identical for several years after 1895 (I recall Padge saying a few years back that there was only one insignificant rule change to do with the scrum retirement??) RU has also bifurcated from the original game of Rugby common to both games

A Widnes season ticket of the 1880s says "Rules: Rugby Union".

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29 minutes ago, Steve Fox said:

A Widnes season ticket of the 1880s says "Rules: Rugby Union".

 

Was it 'advertising' Football, the thing is that League, Union, Association, Australian Rules, etc. are versions of football. Soccer (association) does not have a right to the name.

The thing that distinguished what type of football you were watching, and still does, is the football rules the team played under.

Before the formation of the Football Association (Association, Soccer, rules), the rules used tended to be the rules of the home team and some teams a adopted the rules of others, Winchester Rules, Eton Rules, Sheffield Rules, Cambridge Rules and Rugby Rules where amongst the most common. They all played football, they all still do, they just play the game under a certain set of rules.

I was brought up with if you were going to the football you were going to watch Wigan Rugby and if you were going to the Soccer you were going watching Latics.

Visit my photography site www.padge.smugmug.com

Radio 5 Live: Saturday 14 April 2007

Dave Whelan "In Wigan rugby will always be king"

 

This country's wealth was created by men in overalls, it was destroyed by men in suits.

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I'd heard the round ball game referred to as football on telly but was shocked when a lad from London started at our high school in Widnes and talked about football when everyone else, without exception, called it soccer.

Having said that, only older generations used football for rugby. My mum talked about going into the football ground as a child when the gates opened at halftime and it didn't occur to me she was on about Naughton Park.

Anyway, to get back to the point, Widnes played football under RU rules pre 1895 and NU rules thereafter. "Rugby" didn't magically become rugby union in 1895, though the ru term was probably more widely used than before to distinguish it from nu.

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10 minutes ago, Steve Fox said:

I'd heard the round ball game referred to as football on telly but was shocked when a lad from London started at our high school in Widnes and talked about football when everyone else, without exception, called it soccer.

Having said that, only older generations used football for rugby. My mum talked about going into the football ground as a child when the gates opened at halftime and it didn't occur to me she was on about Naughton Park.

Anyway, to get back to the point, Widnes played football under RU rules pre 1895 and NU rules thereafter. "Rugby" didn't magically become rugby union in 1895, though the ru term was probably more widely used than before to distinguish it from nu.

 

There are many newspaper reports pre 1895 refering to the game of Rugby Union Football or Football Rugby Union Rules.

Visit my photography site www.padge.smugmug.com

Radio 5 Live: Saturday 14 April 2007

Dave Whelan "In Wigan rugby will always be king"

 

This country's wealth was created by men in overalls, it was destroyed by men in suits.

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On 07/01/2017 at 10:33 PM, henage said:

In oz footyball is rugby league , rugby is rugby union and soccer is soccer , well it is in the bush .

Now soccer is being referred to as 'the world game'. At least in Melbourne town, maybe it's a Sydney thing too.

Learn to listen without distortion and learn to look without imagination.

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19 hours ago, Padge said:

 

Was it 'advertising' Football, the thing is that League, Union, Association, Australian Rules, etc. are versions of football. Soccer (association) does not have a right to the name.

The thing that distinguished what type of football you were watching, and still does, is the football rules the team played under.

Before the formation of the Football Association (Association, Soccer, rules), the rules used tended to be the rules of the home team and some teams a adopted the rules of others, Winchester Rules, Eton Rules, Sheffield Rules, Cambridge Rules and Rugby Rules where amongst the most common. They all played football, they all still do, they just play the game under a certain set of rules.

I was brought up with if you were going to the football you were going to watch Wigan Rugby and if you were going to the Soccer you were going watching Latics.

Rugby League was certainly referred to as "football" in Wakefield in the 1960's.  So asking why the Bullring was chocka with traffic early evening I was told "there's a football match at Belle Vue."  Anyone who's seen "This Sporting Life"  (1963) will hear the ref. say after the hooker has had his nose broken "they're not fit to be on a football field." And subsequently Arthur Lowe says "that's not what I call football."

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“Few thought him even a starter.There were many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM. An Earl and a Knight of the Garter.”

Clement Attlee.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I posted this on the Tony Smith Licensing thread but it is probably better discussed here. It is a look at the events leading up to the split with the RFU, which is nothing to do with broken time. This a version of events from my research into it.

 

Lancashire and Yorkshire were a pain in the side of the RFU long before 1895. As the story of the eventual split in rugby unfolds you may get confused by all the various meetings taking place. What you need to realise is that there is the governing body, the RFU, there are then two county committees Lancashire and Yorkshire RFU, there are then sub-committees of the county unions representing the senior clubs in each competition. Other meetings were taking place between groups of clubs that had a similar vision for the game.

The first inter county rugby game between the two great Northern rivals was in 1870 and was played in Leeds. At this stage there was no formal County Committees and it was down to the teams in the county to try and organise informaly a county competition. In 1874 Leeds Athletic, Bradford, Huddersfield, Hull and York formed a county committee to oversee the interests of a Yorkshire County team under the banner of The Yorkshire County Club. Other clubs were not content with 5 clubs running county matters which was causing friction between the elite clubs and the rest, eventually the committee of the Yorkshire County Club bowed to the inevitable and became a formal Union of all Yorkshire clubs in 1888.

Form 1870 to 1881 the Manchester Rugby Union club was the equivilant of the Yorkshire County Club and was responsible for county fixtures on behalf of Lancashire. Rugby clubs in West Lancashire wary of the growth of soccer in the area decided to form their own union in November 1881 to look after the interests of all rugby clubs in Lancashire.

In the 1885-86 season 24 clubs took part in the West Lancashire Cup, the cup competition proved popular attracting a crowd as high as 15,000 for a game between Warrington and Runcorn held at Widnes.

By the start of the 1886-87 season membership had increased to fifty clubs and the union introduced a Junior Challenge Cup alongside the Lancashire Cup.

The Lancashire Union at their AGM held on the 31st May 1889 decided to change from knockout cup competitions to leagues. The senior league consisted of eight clubs, Aspull, Warrington, Wigan, Tyldesley, Leigh, Walkden, St.Helens and Widnes.

The league system only lasted for two seasons, squabbling amongst clubs had made the system difficult to manage. The experiment though had sown seeds for the future.

As the Lancashire experiment ended after season 1890-91 the Yorkshire Senior clubs of Batley, Bradford, Brighouse, Dewsbury, Halifax, Huddersfield, Hull, Hunslet, Leeds, Liversedge, Manningham and Wakefield decided that they wanted their own league starting in season 1891-92. The clubs wanted full control of the league. The Yorkshire RFU would not sanction the move as that would mean they were relinquishing control of the sport to the senior clubs.

At a meeting of the Yorkshire R.U. on 15th January 1895 the Yorkshire committe agreed to send a deputation to a meeting with their Lancashire counterparts in Manchester at The Crown Hotel to discuss the propsal of the formulation of a Northern Union.

At the Manchester meeting the decision was made to press ahead with the creation of the a Northern Union and a meeting arranged for 30th January at the George Hotel Huddersfield for all the senior clubs from Lancashire and Yorkshire.

At the meeting on the 30th January attended by Brighouse Rangers, Batley, Dewsbury, Huddersfield, Warrington, Swinton, Liversedge, Salford, Hull, Wakefield, Manningham, Wigan, Leigh, Tyldesley, Broughton Rangers, Leeds, Oldham, Rochdale Hornets, Hunslet, Bradford and St. Helens the following resolutions were passed.

 

1. That the premier clubs of Lancashire and Yorkshire as here represented do form themselves into a union for the purpose of furthering the interests of Rugby football in the two counties.

2. That the union be governed by one representitive from each club, the offucials to consist of president, vice-president, honarary secretaries and treasurer to be selected from such representitives.

3. That the champion club in the first division of the Lancashire Championship and the champion club of the first division of the Yorkshire Senior Competition play a match for the championship of the Union.

4. Any bona-fide playing member of a club shall be eligible to play for any club in the Union, provided he has not already taken part in a match with another club of the Union. If he has so played, permission for his transfer must be obtained from the club for which he has played and he must in addition have obtained the sanction of this competition committee.

 

Wednesday 23rd January 1895

Yorkshire Senior Competition Committee meet in Leeds discuss a proposal for Northern Rugby Union League. No decision is made about whether to press ahead. It was decided that a meeting should be arranged with Lancashire clubs to see their point of view in Huddersfield on the 8th February.

 

11th February 1895

Manchester guardian reports that interest in Rugby Football in Lancashire has all but disappeared with the suspension of Salford, Wigan and Leigh and compulsery posponement of fixtures betwee Widness and Aspull, Backley and Ulverston and Walkden and Blackley. The reports also complained about the standard of game in the county matches as being below standard and that the Lancashires match with Cumberland had been scratched as being a pointless excersise due to the weakness inflicted by exclusions.

The rugby union have not yet taken any decisive action in regard to the newley formed Northern Union. It was expectted that the union would receive official sanction at the meeting of the (RFU) committee on Friday night but it was considered suffeciently important to defer the consideration of the question to the next meetig. Presumably this meeting will take place before the Scotland game at Richmond on March 9. It is assumed, of coourse, that the fact of the committee declining for the present to approve the new union is an indication of hostility to it.

At the March 9th meeting the RFU asked the Northern Union clubs to submit its proposed rules for the new union.

The following rules were submitted to the RFU following a meeting of the Senior clubs at the George Hotel on 2nd April 1895.

1. The Union shall be called The Lancashire and Yorkshire R.F.U. of Senior Clubs.

 

2. That the Union shall be a member of the RFU

 

3. That it is governed by one representative from each club.

 

4. The officials to be elected at an A.G.M held alternatively in Lancashire and Yorkshire.

 

5. Annual subscription 1 guinea

 

6. Committee of Management to be 4 per County

 

7. Champion club from each county to play for 'Champion of Union'

 

 

The Yorkshire clubs, Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield declined to sign up due to having large capital debts and felt the Northern Union was to much of a gamble. Lancashire clubs Salford and Swinton also had reservations.

The Lancashire RFU refused to back the senior clubs Northern Union at their meeting on 17th April 1895.

The RFU discussed the proposals from the Lancashire and Yorkshire Senior Clubs at a meeting on the 9th May 1895. The RFU committee passed the following resolution.

"This committee being of the opinion that any such organisation as the proposed Union of Lancashire and Yorkshire Clubs would be prejudicial to the best interests of the game, forbids the formation of such a Union”.

 

This left the senior clubs of Lancashire and Yorkshire little option but to form their own organisation outside of the RFU.

The whole thing about money is the line-peddled by the RFU, the clubs wanted control of their fixtures and competitions, this was what the Northern clubs were arguing over, broken time was a side-show.

 

 

 

 

 

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Radio 5 Live: Saturday 14 April 2007

Dave Whelan "In Wigan rugby will always be king"

 

This country's wealth was created by men in overalls, it was destroyed by men in suits.

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