Rugby League in Manchester

[JT RL]

Outside of the professional clubs 

And those well known amateur clubs that “ring” Manchester

Are there any amateur clubs in Manchester itself ?

includes junior, schools, college/university, etc

[Celtic Roosters]

I believe the Universities still play. Don't know about schools but all attempts to establish amateur RL clubs have failed. Manchester Rangers and Tameside Borough made the best attempts but were not really backed. Greater Manchester Police had a team in the North West Counties league in the 80's.

Edited February 4 by Celtic Roosters

[langpark]

The Canalsiders?  How long did they last?

[Cumbrian Fanatic]

Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan universities both run teams, as does Hopwood Hall College 

[Rowan]

Tameside Borough  based at Droylsden spent 15 years in the  Pennine League (1982-1997) before being persuaded to change to Manchester Knights and summer rugby in the new National Summer Conference (then Division Three) and lasted about 4 /5 years playing at four venues (Aldwinians,  Oldham RU, Dukinfield RU, and Ashton in Mersey RU.

[thecoffeeman]

10 hours ago, JT RL said:

Outside of the professional clubs 

And those well known amateur clubs that “ring” Manchester

Are there any amateur clubs in Manchester itself ?

includes junior, schools, college/university, etc

This subject pops up every so on, and I come back to say my piece but this time I've worked out how to link from my last post which pretty much nails why there isn't much/ any rugby league in Manchester:

Read it and weep:

 

 

 

[Damien]

5 hours ago, Rowan said:

Tameside Borough  based at Droylsden spent 15 years in the  Pennine League (1982-1997) before being persuaded to change to Manchester Knights and summer rugby in the new National Summer Conference (then Division Three) and lasted about 4 /5 years playing at four venues (Aldwinians,  Oldham RU, Dukinfield RU, and Ashton in Mersey RU.

This just seems the typical story of any new/expansion type club. Not having your own, permanent home just seems to make it nigh on impossible to grow roots sustainably. Being a nomad moving from RU ground to RU ground rarely ends well.

[Roughyed Rats]

21 hours ago, JT RL said:

Outside of the professional clubs 

And those well known amateur clubs that “ring” Manchester

Are there any amateur clubs in Manchester itself ?

includes junior, schools, college/university, etc

Nope - there's no real interest in anything other than football.

[Eddie]

7 minutes ago, Roughyed Rats said:

Nope - there's no real interest in anything other than football.

Same as Liverpool. 

[Enk27]

Give it a month or so and we can all watch the “East Manchester Yeds” playing out of Stalybridge ….

 

(To confirm this is humour from a position of “if you don’t laugh you will cry” )

[JonM]

Back in the dizzy heights of 2014 or so, when Rugby League could afford to employ development officers, there was a Manchester Schools Cup, with quite a lot of schools involved. 

[thecoffeeman]

1 hour ago, Roughyed Rats said:

Nope - there's no real interest in anything other than football.

You should probably click the arrow above which takes you to my post from last year. It's exactly the opposite actually - there is a lot of interest. 

[Damien]

1 hour ago, JonM said:

Back in the dizzy heights of 2014 or so, when Rugby League could afford to employ development officers, there was a Manchester Schools Cup, with quite a lot of schools involved. 

This is the thing, people cant expect the sport to magically develop in places where there is zero infrastructure or development and put it down to a lack of interest when it doesn't.

[Celtic Roosters]

2 hours ago, thecoffeeman said:

You should probably click the arrow above which takes you to my post from last year. It's exactly the opposite actually - there is a lot of interest. 

Depends what you mean by interest? Yes, I know hundreds of people in the Manchester area who enjoy the Super Greed on TV and many of them have a favourite team that they want to win but, if you ask them if they would get involved in a new Manchester based club the answer is usually no, because they already support a team in another sport, usually football. Ask the people who ran Tameside Borough and Manchester Rangers how difficult and frustrating it was for them? Actually I travel around the North and Midlands watching non league football and I often wear RL shirts, which provokes conversation. I find that the "interest" in Rugby League is the same just about everywhere I go. They love it on TV but would not get involved in a local club.

[Amber Avenger]

8 hours ago, Celtic Roosters said:

Ask the people who ran Tameside Borough and Manchester Rangers how difficult and frustrating it was for them? 

Take a look at the post thecoffeeman linked to, and you'll see he knows exactly how difficult and frustrating it was to run a club in Manchester 

[DlEHARD]

NRL expands into WA. British RL can't even get junior clubs into Manchester. 

[JonM]

2 hours ago, DlEHARD said:

NRL expands into WA. British RL can't even get junior clubs into Manchester. 

Manchester, a city smaller than Brisbane, where the two biggest soccer clubs each have annual revenue around 20x that of the Broncos, Australia's biggest RL club. There are soccer clubs in the seventh and eighth tier in Greater Manchester who are better supported than most professional RL clubs in the UK.  It's just a very different sporting environment. 

Of course, Salford is part of Manchester anyway, whatever locals like to think  

[Griff]

34 minutes ago, JonM said:

Of course, Salford is part of Manchester anyway, whatever locals like to think  

People try to tell me that Wigan and Leigh are in Manchester. 

I laugh because their views change with whatever point they're trying to make.

[Celtic Roosters]

2 hours ago, JonM said:

Manchester, a city smaller than Brisbane, where the two biggest soccer clubs each have annual revenue around 20x that of the Broncos, Australia's biggest RL club. There are soccer clubs in the seventh and eighth tier in Greater Manchester who are better supported than most professional RL clubs in the UK.  It's just a very different sporting environment. 

Of course, Salford is part of Manchester anyway, whatever locals like to think  

Troll.

[thecoffeeman]

On 05/02/2026 at 13:26, Celtic Roosters said:

Depends what you mean by interest? Yes, I know hundreds of people in the Manchester area who enjoy the Super Greed on TV and many of them have a favourite team that they want to win but, if you ask them if they would get involved in a new Manchester based club the answer is usually no, because they already support a team in another sport, usually football. Ask the people who ran Tameside Borough and Manchester Rangers how difficult and frustrating it was for them? Actually I travel around the North and Midlands watching non league football and I often wear RL shirts, which provokes conversation. I find that the "interest" in Rugby League is the same just about everywhere I go. They love it on TV but would not get involved in a local club.

I think we may move in different circles, but there is plenty of evidence that there is interest. The issue is that the people who matter, ie those mentioned in the post I linked to above, have had their fingers burnt a few times now with rugby league. From memory I think I said that there wasn't likely to be much rugby league in MCR for a generation to come as a result of recent going on, and I'll stand by that. 

[Douglas]

On 06/02/2026 at 07:40, DlEHARD said:

NRL expands into WA. British RL can't even get junior clubs into Manchester. 

Only way RL will expand into cities like Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham etc is with NRL investment or involvement similar to lockyer at the broncos  

[Douglas]

I think areas like Middleton, Droylsden and prestwich etc should be targeted for grassroots/ community clubs development as they are close to RL playing areas like Salford, Swinton,Oldham and Rochdale. 

[Rowan]

As I reported earlier Tameside Borough were based at Droylsden (Medlock Sports Centre) for 15 years in the Pennine League occasionally fielding an A team, Under  13s and Under 16s but the arrival of summer rugby led to a dcliee i n recruitment. We were advised to change the name to Manchester Knights and join the new Summer Conference,. We kicked off the new summer season at Aldwinians RU and the game against Wolverhampton Wizards was featured on Boots N All. If truth be told we were never really welcome in the Summer Conference and after one season at Oldham RU we were told that if we did not move we would be excluded from the League because we were not regarded as a "development" club. Sp we moved a couple of miles  to Dukinfield RU. i.e. Back into Tameside.

[paul hicks]

all really depends how you define Manchester.

is it by the city or by the greater Manchester area.  makes a big difference . 

[Celtic Roosters]

9 hours ago, Douglas said:

I think areas like Middleton, Droylsden and prestwich etc should be targeted for grassroots/ community clubs development as they are close to RL playing areas like Salford, Swinton,Oldham and Rochdale. 

Prestwich had a team in the Pennine and NWCL for about 20 years or more, run by very dedicated people like Vic Brunt. but were allowed to just die.

Edited February 8 by Celtic Roosters