Former editor John Drake takes a nostalgic journey back through rugby league history as portrayed on the covers of Open Rugby and Rugby League World over the years, picking out some of the best, and perhaps a few of those best forgotten.
Issue 50 (Feb 1983). This was the first issue I ever bought, aged 17, for my dad who was a big Bradford Northern fan so forgive me this moment of self-indulgence. It was the action photo of Keith Mumby on the cover that earned the sale. Back in those days, you just didn’t see anything rugby league related on the shelves of WH Smith, so it was bound to catch my eye. Little did I know at the time that I would go on to edit the publication on multiple occasions in the future!
Issue 84 (April 1986) This was the first time the cover featured a specially posed shot of a rugby league player in their civvies instead of their playing kit, and who else could it have been other than the super cool superstar himself, Ellery Hanley, then as now, one of the few players from our sport to be widely recognised beyond it.
Issue 120 (Dec 1989). Rugby league really was blessed with crossover talent back in the 1980s, helped in no small part by the rising profile of the Great Britain team, which a year earlier had won its first test match against Australia for 10 years. Ellery Hanley and Martin Offiah both played their part in that and had the kind of star quality that transcended the game.
Issue 141 (Jan 1992). You can love or hate that odd-looking Great Britain kit (call me old fashioned, but I prefer an unadulterated vee), but there’s no denying the youthful blond bombshell Denis Betts looks rather dashing in it. Hopes were high that the Lions might win the Ashes on tour later that year, and it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to say that.
Issue 190 (Oct 1996). Say what you will about the arrival of Super League, but it definitely upped rugby league’s game in terms of promotional photography. Try to ignore if you can the garish logo of the mag at that time, and just enjoy the quality of the image, with five stars of the game staring out from behind painted faces on a plain white background. The sort of thing you might see other sports doing, now rugby league was able to afford to do it too!
Issue 209 (Aug 1998). This was the first issue of Open Rugby produced by League Publications Ltd, and there’s a noticeable change in tone. A smouldering posed shot of Henry Paul staring out of the semi-darkness bringing to an end a series of somewhat noisy and cluttered covers that immediately preceded it.
Issue 216 (March 1999). The arrival of Rugby League World ‘incorporating’ Open Rugby as the magazine changes its title to include the word ‘league’ for the first time. Heralding the new era, a trio of mean looking Rhinos fronted by Adrian Morley dare you to walk out of the shop without buying a copy.
Issue 252 (March 2002). Back in the early noughties, Bradford Bulls were in their pomp and popped up regularly on the cover. Here, we have Lesley Vainikolo looking like he’s not ready to give up the Super League trophy they won the year before, with the challengers to the crown looking on from behind. Plus, a frontrunner to the fixture booklets we regularly give away with our season launch issues now, you got a free Tetley’s Super League VII Fixture Card.
Issue 317 (Aug 2007). The first gatefold cover, to commemorate the return of the Rugby League Challenge Cup final to Wembley Stadium after its expensive redevelopment. The problem with gatefold covers is that you have to open them out for them to look good. When they’re sat on a newsagent’s shelf, you can only see half of it, which can look a bit odd.
Issue 339 (July 2009). Two for the price of one (well, two actually as you’d have to buy them both separately) as the mag trialled different covers for different parts of the country for the first time. The bane of completist collectors everywhere, it was an experiment that didn’t last long. Two issues, to be precise.
Issue 358 (Feb 2011). Sam Burgess semi-naked on a surfboard. What’s not to like? A refreshing counterbalance to the one-sided sexism of some of the earlier covers, at least that’s the excuse we’re sticking to for this one. It was hailed by one of our correspondents at the time as ‘the best cover you’ve ever done!’ Perhaps now Sam is back in the British game we could persuade him to get the surfboard out again on Blackpool beach? Then again, perhaps not. Bit too cold.
Issue 407 (March 2015). The first, and probably only time we’ll ever get to feature a Hollywood film star on the cover, unless Tom Cruise ever decides to play Jean Galia in the story of the birth of French Rugby League (he may need AI to make him look young enough, but he’d definitely learn to play the game as he’s renowned for doing his own stunts). Until then, we’ll always have King of the Bunnies, Russell Crowe. (Did Mickey Rourke ever get round to making that film about Gareth Thomas?).
Issue 419 (March 2016). A great photo makes for a great cover, and this is one of the best. Kyle Amor’s piercing stare draws you in, and this wouldn’t have looked out of place on the cover of something like GQ.
Issue 431 (March 2017). Loads of people have ripped off (sorry, ‘been influenced by’) the iconic cover of the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album by The Beatles, but Rugby League World went a step further with its own attempt, by making every feature headline inside the title of a Beatles song as well. Sadly, hard as we tried, we couldn’t get Rocky Raccoon in there.
Issue 449 (Sept 2018). Over its 500 issues, the cover has chronicled successes, failures, rises and falls in fortunes and everything in between, and often, genuine moments of history like this one, when Catalans Dragons became the first club from outside Britain to win the Challenge Cup.
Issue 468 (April 2020) and Issue 469 (Feb 2022). A bit of a gap between these two, despite having consecutive issue numbers. The Covid pandemic saw Rugby League World, like almost everything else, shut down in March 2020 with the hopeful if uncertain prediction that ‘We’ll be back’. And, back we were for the launch of the 2022 season, albeit subscription only now, with the mag’s first female editor at the helm.
Issue 479 (Dec 2022). Back in 1976 when Open Rugby first saw the light of day, a cover like this would have seemed like a fever dream. But by 2022, here we were celebrating the game in all its glory with World Cups galore, and representatives of men’s, women’s, wheelchair and physical disability rugby league sharing equal billing.
Issue 498 (July 2024). This one made us cry. Our tribute to the late, great Rob Burrow, who first appeared on the cover as one of six Grand Final hopefuls back in October 2002 (Issue 259), and then had it all to himself as our solo cover star in July 2005 (Issue 292).
AND A FEW OF OUR MISFIRES…
Issue 104 (April 1988). If you want an illustration of how far we’ve advanced as a sport, and as a publication, this one represents the first appearance of women on the cover. No disrespect to those involved back then, different times and all that, but nowadays we see women at every level of rugby league, as players, coaches, referees and administrators, not merely used as glamorous adornments.
Issue 175 (May 1995). The first time the cover featured a drawing rather than a photo (presumably because Rupert Murdoch wasn’t available to pose in person, ahem) and the pirate flag was the magazine’s unsubtle way of indicating its disapproval of the media mogul’s arrival in rugby league which would result in an acrimonious split in the game down under and the birth of the European Super League.
Issues 285/297/309 Dec ’04, ’05, ’06). The ‘Christmas Trilogy’ or should that be ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ as the magazine hired a Santa suit and certainly got its money’s worth, spending three Yuletides persuading rugby league people who should have known better to dress up for a bit of festive fun. Barrie McDermott, Ian Millward and Stevo are probably scarred for life, and the less said about the startled elf the better.
Issue 359 (March 2011). What were we thinking when we commissioned this, in 2011? Just goes to show, not every idea is a good one. As a plea of mitigation, we had started running regular high-profile features on women’s rugby league in the mag a year earlier.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 500 (September 2024)
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