A Time Line of Some of the Events in the Story of the Schools Game
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A TIME LINE OF SOME OF THE EVENTS IN THE STORY OF THE SCHOOLS GAME 1902 Schools Association formed in Leeds.Goldthorpe Trophy played for.Still in existence today 1904/05 School Associations formed in St.Helens and Wigan 1906 12 Schools known to be playing competitive Rugby League in Wigan 1907 St.Helens and Wigan play a Representative Game and report of the game given in the Local Press 1912 Yorkshire Schools RL. formed 1913 Lancashire Schools RL. formed 1914 South Crosland School,Huddersfield defeat Lincoln Street,Hull in the Yorkshire Schools Cup Final 1914 Warrington defeat St.Helens in the Lancashire Schools Cup Final 1919/20 First County Match between Lancashire and Yorkshire Schools played 1926 St.Patrick’s Wigan defeat St.Bede’s Widnes before a crowd of 16000 at Central Park,Wigan in the inaugural final of The Daily Dispatch Shield .The Gate receipts were £235. 1935 Swinton Schools play Yorkshire Schools in London in an exhibition game.Crowd of 4000,mainly schoolchildren.After the Reception both teams were taken to Wembley and saw “The Cup.”All were impressed by the Silver Jubilee Decorations festooning London 1935 St.Helens Schools make a delayed visit to France in May.The delay was due to a change in the French Senior Fixtures 1945 Widnes defeat Salford in the final of The Lancashire Schools Cup.The game is attended by the Mayors of Salford,Swansea,Widnes,Swinton and Burnley. 1945 Lancashire defeat Yorkshire by 12-6 in the County game staged at Swansea.Presentations after the game are made in The Guildhall by the Mayor of Swansea 1946 In his Annual Report to Lancashire Schools,Ivor Harris looks forward to the day when a School team can represent England in France 1950 First game between Lancashire and Cumberland played in Cumberland 1954 In the Yorkshire v Lancashire County Game, Neil Fox played for Yorkshire; the Lancashire half back pairing was Jacky Edwards and Alex Murphy 1955 County games between Cumberland, Lancashire and Yorkshire are played under floodlights 1956 Ashton Road,Secondary,Castleford win the Yorkshire Schools Cup. Alan Hardisty, Keith Hepworth and Johnny Ward are members of the team 1957 Wigan Schools RL. submit a document to Rugby Football League outlining proposals for the formation of an English Schools Rugby League 1959 Discussions held between Lancashire,Cumberland and Yorkshire Schools re- representation on the RL.Council and the formation of an English Schools RL 1959 Yorkshire v Lancashire game played as a Curtain Raiser at Headingley to the Second Test between Great Britain and Australia. 1961 A proposed televised “friendly” Lancashire v Yorkshire game was cancelled at the eleventh hour due to the RFL.and BBC being unable to come to an agreement 1963 Golden Jubilee Lancashire v Yorkshire County Game played at Central Park, Wigan 1965 Formation of English Schools Rugby League.Fred Howarth was Chairman,Norman Jolley the Hon.Secretary 1967 Wigan Schools win the inaugural ESRL .K.O.Trophy defeating Widnes at Station Road,Swinton,in a Curtain Raiser to the re-played Championship Final between Wakefield Trinity and St.Helens 1967 Following a meeting in Manchester with M. Gilbert Dautant it was agreed that a tour be made to France.There will be one representative player from each Association. Graham Mayor of Wigan was chosen as Captain 1968 The Sin Bin principle was formally adopted by ESRL 1972 The Australian Schoolboys begin their tour of England in November in the first of 12 games against East Lancashire at Oldham 1972 Test matches against the Australian Schoolboys are played at Wigan, Wakefield and London. The Australians won all of their games scoring 402 points with just 17 conceded .Royce Ayliffe, Les Boyd, Craig Young and Ian Schubert all later play in NRL., the latter three representing Australia at professional level. 1972 The French Cadets visit England for the first time. ESRL. win the Test Match at Hull by 5-2 1972- ESRL.Sevens Competition for individual Schools launched at Warrington 1974 ESRL.and France begin the programme of biennial, reciprocal visits 1974 St.John Fisher School,Wigan defeat Cross Green Comprehensive,Leeds in the first “unofficial” Under 16 Champion Schools game.Teachers Steve McLeod and Alan Hornby are the “pioneers.” 1975 First ever Wembley Curtain Raiser played between Widnes and Wigan at Under 11 years of age. David Hume played for Widnes; Joe Lydon for Wigan whilst Mike Gregory was indisposed for the Wigan Squad. Raymond Galloway of Widnes became the first schoolboy player to score a try at Wembley. Steve Bateson is the first Schoolteacher referee to officiate at a Wembley Curtain Raiser 1975 St.Helens is the winner of the first ESRL.Championship; Bradford the runner up. Hull win the second division title with Whitehaven runner up 1976 Lancashire and Cumbria Schools merge to become North West Counties 1981 ESRL launches the Champion Schools Competition for the Under 16 years of age.The Competition is open initially to the Champion Schools of the constituent Associations 1983 ESRL. launches Champion School Competitions for the Under 11,12,13,14 and 15 years of age 1985/6 Beginning of a series of Under 11 Regional games played between North West Counties and Yorkshire & Humberside 1988 Wigan win the inaugural Under 11 Division 1 title with Oldham runner up; West Cumbria win Division 2 with East Hull runner up 1989 A statistical review conducted by Bill Watts, Fixture Secretary of ESRL.showed that there are 25 constituent Associations and 865 teams playing Rugby League in schools on a regular basis 1993 Sophie Cox becomes the first girl to play in a Wembley Curtain Raiser. Sophie played for Rochdale against Sheffield. This made copy for the National Press and was also a feature on The Blue Peter Programme 1997 Hull are the winners in the inaugural ESRL.Premiership;Wigan is runner up 1999 ESRL. tour Queensland winning 5 of the 6 games played .Members of the touring party included Rob Burrow, Danny McGuire, Chev Walker, Richie Mathers, Sean O’Loughlin and Shaun Briscoe. Billie Joe Edwards, brother of Shaun who was sadly killed in a motor accident a few years later, was also a member of the party. 2004 -2005-2006 -2007-2008 -2009 Rolling Programme of Champion School Competition for Girls at Under 12 years of age launched in 2004 and then for Under 13, Under14,Under15 and Under 16 years of age in the subsequent years 2008 St.John Fisher School,Wigan is runner up in The School of The Year Award at The Emirates Stadium 2009 St.John Fisher play Toulouge home and away 2011 English Schools Rugby League hands over the reins of adminstration to the new sub committee overseen by the Governing Body for the Sport, The Rugby Football League There are surely many more events which are worthy of inclusion but sadly are lost in the passage of time. Voluntary organisations.such as the Schools ,without the benefit of fixed offices and resources rely upon individuals to preserve and nurture items such as Minute Books. Alas,events such as men going off to War,or moving from one post to another often result in such items being misplaced and subsequently lost. .