Our journey around the villages, towns and cities that have rugby league running through their veins heads back to West Yorkshire.
WAKEFIELD has long been listed as one of the biggest places in England and Wales never to have had a Football League club.
But when it comes to our game, there is no doubting the credentials of the cathedral city with a population of around 110,000 located on the River Calder.
Wakefield Trinity were among the 22 teams who broke away from the Rugby Football Union to form their own Northern Union in 1895.
And the club go back to 1873, when they were established as part of the sports arm of the Holy Trinity Church Young Men’s Society on George Street.
A mile to the south is Belle Vue, or the DIY Kitchens Stadium in present-day parlance, where Trinity are reckoned to have played since Easter 1879, when they took on Manchester side Birch in a charity match.
In terms of continuous use by a now-rugby league club, only Batley’s Mount Pleasant (aka Fox’s Biscuits Stadium) comes close, with the Heavy Woollen team believed to have first appeared there in October 1880.
Keighley took up residence at Lawkholme Lane (now Cougar Park) in 1885, by which time Trinity were emerging as one of the strongest rugby clubs in Yorkshire, having chalked up three of their four county cup (or T’owd Tin Pot) triumphs in nine seasons.
Trinity made nine finals in 13 years, and were among the Yorkshire clubs who tried unsuccessfully to set up their own league in 1891.
Four years later all twelve were among those who formed the Northern Union, and Trinity have been at the heart of the competition ever since.
It’s not all been plain sailing – just last year, there was a relegation from Super League, of course – but there have been real highs, most notably the Neil Fox-inspired halcyon days of the 1960s, when two league titles (the club’s only such triumphs to date), three Challenge Cups (out of five in total), three Yorkshire Cups (out of ten) and three Yorkshire League titles (out of seven) were claimed.
Indeed in 1961-62, Trinity came oh so close to emulating Hunslet (1907-08), Huddersfield (1914-15) and Swinton (1927-28), who each collected All Four Cups.
Leeds were beaten 19-9 in the Yorkshire Cup showpiece at Odsal and after the Yorkshire League crown had been clinched, Huddersfield were seen off 12-6 at Wembley in the Challenge Cup final.
Those two met at Odsal in the Championship Final seven days later, but although Trinity had claimed 13 more points than the Fartowners over 36 regular-season games in finishing second in the table to Wigan, they were beaten 14-5 in the title decider, which followed play-off semi-finals (they had gone down to 27-3 to Wigan at Odsal in the Championship Final two seasons earlier).
Even so, Trinity were box office, quite literally since their home Challenge Cup quarter-final clash against Wigan that season featured in the award-winning kitchen-sink drama film This Sporting Life, which came out in 1963.
Based on the novel of the same name by David Storey, who came from Wakefield and played for Leeds ‘A’, it featured Richard Harris as loose-forward Frank Machin, the miner whose romantic life was less successful than his rugby league career.
The 28,254 attendance was a post-war record for a Trinity match at the ground (the club’s biggest was 30,676 for the Challenge Cup meeting with Huddersfield in 1920-21).
Wakefield also won the Challenge Cup in 1959-60, defeating Hull 38-5, and 1962-63, when Wigan were seen off 25-10, and featured in the noted ‘Watersplash’ final of 1967-68, when Don Fox’s last-minute conversion miss from in front of the posts meant Leeds won 11-10.
Seven days earlier, Don Fox had improved brother Neil’s try as Hull KR were beaten 17-10 at Headingley in the Championship Final, meaning Trinity retained the league title earned courtesy of a 21-9 replay win over St Helens at Station Road four days after a 7-7 draw at Headingley in May 1967.
Throw in Yorkshire Cup triumphs in 1960-61 and 1964-65) and Yorkshire League titles in 1959-60 and 1965-66, and it was a trophy-laden decade which also featured an adventurous tour of South Africa in 1962 (Wakefield sixties star threequarters Gert Coetzer, Col Greenwood, Jan Prinsloo and Alan Skene were all from that country).
More local players like fullback Gerry Round, halfback Harold Poynton and loose-forward Derek ‘Rocky’ Turner were favourites, but there’s no doubting Neil Fox’s place in Trinity folklore.
The ace centre holds the club’s career records for tries (272), goals (1,836) and points (4,488), set between 1956 and 1974.
No wonder the club named the new main stand at their redeveloped stadium after him!
Also worthy of mention is Harry Wilkinson, the prop or loose-forward who played a Trinity-record 605 matches between 1930 and 1949, including the 1945-46 Challenge Cup final win over Wigan, who were beaten 13-12 at Wembley.
That was the club’s second Challenge Cup final victory, with Hull defeated 17-0 at Headingley in 1908-09.
These days, of course, Trinity find themselves in the Championship (after 25 seasons in Super League), but thanks to businessman Matt Ellis’ takeover, in a healthier state then when they were in the top flight, and determined to return there under the club-grading system.
Trinity formed a women’s side in 2016, while the city has Yorkshire Men’s League amateur clubs in Crigglestone All Blacks, Eastmoor Dragons, Ossett Trinity Tigers, Stanley Rangers and Westgate Common.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 500 (September 2024)
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