1905 Yorkshire Cup

The 1905 Yorkshire Cup competition was a knock-out competition between (mainly professional) rugby league clubs from the county of Yorkshire. The actual area was at times increased to encompass other teams from outside the county such as Newcastle, Mansfield, Coventry, and even London (in the form of Acton & Willesden.
The Rugby League season always (until the onset of "Summer Rugby" in 1996) ran from around August-time through to around May-time and this competition always took place early in the season, in the Autumn, with the final taking place in (or just before) December (The only exception to this was when disruption of the fixture list was caused during, and immediately after, the two World Wars)
1905 was the inaugural year for the Rugby League "Yorkshire Cup" competition.

The cup was won by Hunslet who beat Halifax by a score of 13-3
The match was played at Park Avenue in the City of Bradford, now in West Yorkshire. The attendance was 18,500 and receipts were £465

The Competition

Following the great schism of 1895 which led to the formation of rugby league there appear to be very little interest in a competitive competition organised on a regional basis, at least between clubs based in Yorkshire. Prior to the breakaway from rugby union this was something that had been discouraged as it was feared that competition would lead to professionalism, as had happened in other sports like Association Football.
One of the exceptions was the trophy played for by the Yorkshire Rugby Union clubs. "T'owd Tin Pot", or officially, the Yorkshire Challenge Cup. The Governing body of the RFU were appalled at the idea, but turned a blind eye as all the proceeds from the final were distributed among various charities.
It was around 10 years after the "great schism" before the idea of a County Cup for the Rugby League game became a reality. There appears to be very little, if any, details of how the introduction of the county cup competitions came about, or any details of any of the instigators or of any campaign, but the County Cups became the last part of what would become known as the four cups.
The competitions were played on the same basis as was the Challenge Cup, i.e. a free draw with matches played on a sudden death straight knock-out basis, and with the final played (usually) on a neutral ground.
The county cups were last played for in the 1992-93 season, by which time, clubs were complaining about fixture congestion. The competition did continue in a revised form and for the junior (or amateur) part of the game and in the form of The Yorkshire Cup, The Lancashire Cup and The Cumbria County Cup.

Background

For this inaugural competition, a total of twenty clubs had entered, and so a preliminary round was introduced involving eight clubs, to reduce the number of clubs taking part in the main competition to sixteen, a full complement for a four round knock-out tournament.

Competition and Results^[1]

Preliminary Round

Involved 4 matches and 8 clubs

Round 1

Involved 5 matches (with three byes) and 13 Clubs

Round 1 - Replays

Involved 1 match and 2 Clubs

Round 2 - Quarter Finals

Involved 4 matches and 8 Clubs

Round 2 - Replays

Involved 1 match and 2 Clubs

Round 3 – Semi-Finals

Involved 2 matches and 4 Clubs

Semi-Final - Replays

Involved 1 match and 2 Clubs

Final

Teams and Scorers

Scoring - Try = three (3) points - Goal = two (2) points - Drop goal = one (1) point

The road to success

The following chart excludes any preliminary round fixtures/results

Notes and comments

1 * Featherstone Rovers were at the time a junior/amateur club from FeatherstonE
2 * Outwood Parish Church were a junior/amateur club from Outwood (a district to the North of Wakefield) who were playing in the Yorkshire Second Competition (Eastern Section)
3 * Saville Green were a junior/amateur club from the East Leeds area
4 * RUGBYLEAGUEproject^[1] gives Bramley as the home team (and playing at Barley Mow) but the official Hull archives give the venue as Boulevard, Hull's home ground.
5 * Match abandoned after 63 minutes due to "bad light"
6 * Unknown reason for replayed fixture being reversed instead at Craven Park.
7 * Park Avenue was the home ground of Bradford from 1880 until "The Great Betrayal", in 1907. Although the ground capacity is not known it is estimated to have been between 20,000-30,000

See also

• 1905-06 Northern Rugby Football Union season
• Rugby league county cups

References

External links

• Saints Heritage Society
• 1896–97 Northern Rugby Football Union season at wigan.rlfans.com
• Hull&Proud Fixtures & Results 1896/1897
• Widnes Vikings - One team, one passion Season In Review - 1896-97
• The Northern Union at warringtonwolves.org