1914–15 Yorkshire Cup Explained

1914–15 Yorkshire Cup
Structure:Regional knockout championship
Season Champs:Huddersfield
Season Champ Name:Winners
Runner-Up Name:Runner-up
Second Place:Hull
Prevseason Link:1913–14 Yorkshire Cup
Prevseason Year:1913–14
Nextseason Link:1918–19 Yorkshire Cup
Nextseason Year:1918–19
No Of Teams:13

The 1914–15 Yorkshire Cup was the tenth occasion on which the Yorkshire Cup competition, a Rugby league competition, was held.

This year's competition was again the turn of the previous cup holder, Huddersfield, winning the trophy by beating Hull F.C. by the score of 31–0

The match was played at Headingley, Leeds, now in West Yorkshire. The attendance was 12,000 and receipts were £422

This was Huddersfield's fifth appearance of what would be seven appearances in eight consecutive finals between 1909 and 1919 (which included four successive victories and six in total.) It was also the second of the four consecutive wins.

Background

Britain had declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914 after they had attacked Luxemburg, Belgium and France. A month later the season proper started against this backdrop. The Yorkshire Cup competition started in October and it was to be the last until the end of the war. Tensions had been building across Britain and the rest of Europe for some time, but, despite this, the 1914–1915 season was played to its conclusion, albeit in some cases a little half-heartedly as evidenced in the lower attendances at matches and with several teams absent and many players already enlisted in the Armed Forces. In the middle of 1915 competitive sporting competition was finally suspended. This season there were no junior/amateur clubs taking part, no new entrants and no "leavers" and so the total of entries remained the same at thirteen. This in turn resulted in three byes in the first round.

Competition and results

[1] [2]

Round 1

Involved 5 matches (with three byes) and 13 clubs

width=20 abbr="No" Game Nowidth=100 abbr="Date"Fixture datewidth=150 abbr="Home team"Home teamwidth=5 abbr="space" width=20 abbr="Score" Scorewidth=5 abbr="space" width=150 abbr="Away team" Away teamwidth=150 abbr="Venue" Venuewidth=30 abbr="Att" Attwidth=30 abbr="Rec" Recwidth=20 abbr="Notes" Noteswidth=30 abbr="Ref" Ref
1Sat 17 Oct 1914Batley5–0DewsburyMount Pleasant
2Sat 17 Oct 1914Bramley0–25HalifaxBarley Mow
3Sat 17 Oct 1914Hull Kingston Rovers10–5Wakefield TrinityCraven Street (off Holderness Road)
4Sat 17 Oct 1914Leeds11–13HunsletHeadingley
5Sat 17 Oct 1914York13–24HuddersfieldClarence Street
6Bradford Northernbye
7Hullbye[3]
8Keighleybye

Round 2 – quarterfinals

Involved 4 matches and 8 clubs

width=20 abbr="No" Game Nowidth=100 abbr="Date"Fixture datewidth=150 abbr="Home team"Home teamwidth=5 abbr="space" width=20 abbr="Score" Scorewidth=5 abbr="space" width=150 abbr="Away team" Away teamwidth=150 abbr="Venue" Venuewidth=30 abbr="Att" Attwidth=30 abbr="Rec" Recwidth=20 abbr="Notes" Noteswidth=30 abbr="Ref" Ref
1Sat 31 Oct 1914Batley2–0Bradford NorthernMount Pleasant
2Sat 31 Oct 1914Halifax8–8HuddersfieldThrum Hall1
3Sat 31 Oct 1914Hull11–5Hull Kingston RoversBoulevard
4Sat 31 Oct 1914Hunslet12–7KeighleyParkside

Round 2 – Replays

Involved 1 match and 2 clubs

width=20 abbr="No" Game Nowidth=100 abbr="Date"Fixture datewidth=150 abbr="Home team"Home teamwidth=5 abbr="space" width=20 abbr="Score" Scorewidth=5 abbr="space" width=150 abbr="Away team" Away teamwidth=150 abbr="Venue" Venuewidth=30 abbr="Att" Attwidth=30 abbr="Rec" Recwidth=20 abbr="Notes" Noteswidth=30 abbr="Ref" Ref
RThu 05 Nov 1914Halifax2–10HuddersfieldThrum Hall

Round 3 – semifinals

Involved 2 matches and 4 clubs

width=20 abbr="No" Game Nowidth=100 abbr="Date"Fixture datewidth=150 abbr="Home team"Home teamwidth=5 abbr="space" width=20 abbr="Score" Scorewidth=5 abbr="space" width=150 abbr="Away team" Away teamwidth=150 abbr="Venue" Venuewidth=30 abbr="Att" Attwidth=30 abbr="Rec" Recwidth=20 abbr="Notes" Noteswidth=30 abbr="Ref" Ref
1Sat 14 Nov 1914Huddersfield64–3HunsletFartown
2Sat 14 Nov 1914Hull7–0BatleyBoulevard

Final

width=20 abbr="No" Game Nowidth=100 abbr="Date"Fixture datewidth=150 abbr="Home team"Home teamwidth=5 abbr="space" width=20 abbr="Score" Scorewidth=5 abbr="space" width=150 abbr="Away team" Away teamwidth=150 abbr="Venue" Venuewidth=45 abbr="Att" Attwidth=60 abbr="Rec" Recwidth=20 abbr="Notes" Noteswidth=30 abbr="Ref" Ref
Saturday 28 November 1914Huddersfield31–0HullHeadingley120004222 3[4] [5]

Teams and scorers

[6] [7]

width=280 abbr=winnerHuddersfieldwidth=60 abbr="Number"width=280 abbr=runner-upHull
teams
Major Holland1Ned Rogers
George Todd2Alfred Francis
Albert "Rozzi" Rosenfeld3Billy Batten
Harold Wagstaff (c)4Jack Harrison (VC)
Stan Moorhouse5Jim Devereux
Johnny Rogers6Sid Deane
Robert Habron7Tom Milner
John Higson8Tom Herridge
Douglas Clark9William Holder
Ben Gronow10Joe Hammill
Fred Longstaff11Steve Darmody
Arthur Swinden12Percy Oldham
H. Banks13Dick Taylor
Arthur Bennett (trainer)CoachSid Melville (trainer)
31score0
15HT0
Scorers
Tries
Harold Wagstaff (2)T
Stan Moorhouse (1)T
Billy Banks (1)T
George Todd (1)T
Albert "Rozzi" Rosenfeld (1)T
Johnny Rogers (1)T
T
Goals
Major Holland (5)G
RefereeJimmy May (St. Helens)
Scoring – Try = three (3) points – Goal = two (2) points – Drop goal = two (2) points

The road to success

Notes and comments

1 * Match abandoned after 50 minutes due to fog

2 * The never to be beaten record widest margin victory in a final

3 * Headingley, Leeds, is the home ground of Leeds RLFC with a capacity of 21,000. The record attendance was 40,175 for a league match between Leeds and Bradford Northern on 21 May 1947.

General information for those unfamiliar

The Rugby League 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).

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Rugby League Project.
  2. Book: Jack Winstanley & Malcolm Ryding. John Player Yearbook 1975–76. 1991. Queen Anne Press.
  3. Web site: HULL&PROUD – Stats – Fixtures & Results.
  4. Book: Raymond Fletcher and David Howes. Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1991–1992. 1991. Queen Anne Press. 0 35617852 8.
  5. Book: Raymond Fletcher and David Howes. Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1990–1991. 1990. Queen Anne Press. 0 35617851 X.
  6. Web site: Huddersfield RL Heritage 1914–15.
  7. Irvin Saxton (publish date tbc) "History of Rugby League – № 20 – 1914–15". Rugby Leaguer ISBN n/a