Our journey around the villages, towns and cities that have rugby league running through their veins reaches Chorley.
COOL, cakes, cotton – and let’s not forget the 13-a-side code.
Phil Cool, the comedian and impressionist with the flexible face who became a household name in the 1990s, and the currant-crammed shortcrust pastry discs which take their name from the old mill town are commonly associated with Chorley, which thrived in the wake of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century.
But the place between Preston and Wigan whose proximity to the Lancashire Coalfield meant it had an involvement in mining as well as spinning also hosted professional rugby league for 12 seasons – and still has and presence in the game through amateur club Chorley Panthers, who play in the North West Men’s League.
When it comes to paid players, and a senior club, the story started, and effectively ended, 30 miles away in good old Blackpool.
Because as well as it’s tower, promenade, pleasure beach and proliferation of fish-and-chip and rock shops, the famous seaside resort had a rugby league side Blackpool Borough, who were established ahead of the 1954-55 season.
Having initially played at the town’s greyhound stadium, with big matches switched to Blackpool Football Club’s Bloomfield Road home, the rugby team relocated to a newly-built ground – Borough Park – in 1963 following the sale of the dog track for housing.
However 24 years later, strapped for cash and struggling to carry out the necessary measures for Borough Park to gain a safety certificate, the club left Blackpool.
Initially it was for Wigan, with their new name, Springfield Borough, coined after they moved in with Wigan Athletic Football Club, who while they now groundshare with that town’s well-known rugby league team, at that time had their own ground, Springfield Park.
But it was a case of this town ain’t big enough for the two, or to be more accurate, three of us, since with such a big and established fellow rugby league team on the doorstep, Springfield struggled to attract supporters, and also seemed to have a tricky relationship with the football club, parting ways after just the one season, 1987-88, in which they finished fourth in the Second Division, just outside the promotion places.
Borough headed nine miles up the road, renaming themselves Chorley rather than Springfield, and set up base at Victory Park, home of the town’s non-league football club.
But the 1988-89 campaign wasn’t as encouraging, with a final position of 16th, and there was also a breakdown at boardroom level, with some directors having favoured a switch to Altrincham, South of Manchester.
At the end of the season, that faction followed their initial wishes and split away to Altrincham Football Club’s Moss Lane to set up Trafford Borough, while the remaining directors renamed their team plain Chorley.
As luck would have it, the first match of the next season, 1989-90, was a Lancashire Cup preliminary-round tie against, you’ve guessed it, Trafford Borough, who were beaten 12-6 to set up a first-round showdown with Wigan.
The tie was switched to Leigh’s old Hilton Park to accommodate a larger crowd than Victory Park could host, with 5,026 seeing a 50-4 defeat.
The suffix Borough was brought back for the 1991-92 season, when the team played in the newly-formed Third Division, finishing third-bottom.
Below them were Trafford Borough, who for 1992-93, became Blackpool Gladiators, playing at non-league football club Blackpool Mechanics (now AFC Blackpool).
At the same time, amid a strained relationship with their landlords, Chorley Borough had moved six miles away to another non-league football ground, Horwich RMI’s now-gone Grundy Hill.
The season proved dismal for the pair of them, because along with Nottingham City, they made up the bottom three of the third section, with the trio dropping out of the semi-professional sphere after another bout of tinkering with the league structure by the governing body.
It was to prove the death knell for both the Gladiators and Nottingham City, but after two seasons in the amateur ranks, the second of which marked a return to Victory Park, Chorley were re-elected to the Rugby Football League, with the town’s MP and now House of Commons Speaker and Rugby Football League president Lindsay Hoyle a driving force.
Now named Chorley Chieftans, they competed in the Second Division (the third of three) in the last Winter season of 1995-96, which marked the game’s centenary.
As Summer rugby arrived in 1996, the Chieftans remained in the lower reaches of the Second Division, before in yet another twist, Preston North End Football Club took ownership, moved the rugby league team 12 miles to their historic Deepdale ground and renamed them Lancashire Lynx.
There was success on the grass, with Lynx, under former Wigan and Great Britain fullback Steve Hampson, winning the Second Division title and reaching the final of the end-of-season Anglo-French Treize Tournoi (they lost 16-10 to Villeneuve in Toulouse) in 1998.
But it remained a struggle to attract support, and for 1999, the club returned to Victory Park, renaming themselves Chorley Lynx in 2001, by which time local-lad-made-good Trevor Hemmings was providing finance following North End’s withdrawal from involvement.
That was the ninth season of professional rugby league at Victory Park, and there were only three more after, because at the end of the 2004 campaign, the club folded.
At that point, coach Mark Lee and 16 of the players joined newly-formed Blackpool Panthers, providing a spiritual seaside return.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 492 (January 2024)
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