Rugby league in England

Rugby league is a popular team sport played in England. Its popularity is strongest in the Northern parts of England- spanning from Lancashire, Merseyside and Cheshire, to across the penines in Yorkshire. The sport is also popular in Cumbria where the amateur game is particularly powerful. The game is played outside of these traditional areas but in far lower numbers, where rugby league is reduced to a minority sport. However, there has been considerable growth in the game on English soil, which can be seen in television viewing figures, attendance at Super League games and participants nationwide as compared with previous years.

History

Main article: History of rugby league

Rugby has long been popular in the North of England, and by the 1880s the region's clubs had come to dominate. The game was largely popular amongst working class people, unlike the clubs in Southern England whose players belonged to the middle or upper class. Rugby competition at the time did not allow paying players any salary; the working-class players felt they could not afford time off to train and play, nor could they afford to miss work through injury sustained whilst playing. The principle of amateurism, and issues of class ensured that the Rugby Football Union would not countenance professional rugby.

In 1895 representatives of the northern clubs met to form the "Northern Rugby Football Union" (NRFU). It is often, mistakenly, thought that this new body allowed professionalism from the start, though in fact the NRFU was initially vehemently anti-professional, allowing only payments for time missed from other employment. A thriving amateur scene also soon developed, as local amateur clubs wished to maintain links with their "Northern Union" neighbours. The NRFU became the Rugby Football League in 1922.

The game initially struggled against the rise of association football, and although several attempts were made to expand the game outside the heartlands, a Southern Amateur Rugby League being formed in 1949, only Cumbria proved receptive. Nonetheless the game survived, and continued to maintain popularity in its home regions. The introduction of regular internationals as other countries took up the sport provided a fillip, as did the coming of television some 60 years later.

The foundation of the Universities and Colleges Rugby League in 1969 and the British Amateur Rugby League in 1973 responded to the need to develop the game below professional level.

In 1995, the fallout from the Super League war hit Britain, and the game underwent massive re-organisation. A new elite league, Super League (Europe) was formed, and the sport switched from a winter to a summer season. Super League has largely been a success for the game as a whole as television ratings, top tier game crowd attendances and participation numbers all growing year upon year since 2001; few would argue that the health of the game is not far better than it was during the mid 1990s.

Governing body

There is no governing body for the sport in England - that role is filled by the Rugby Football League, whose remit covers the United Kingdom as a whole. Most amateur rugby league is run by the British Amateur Rugby League Association (BARLA), though they are not responsible for the Rugby League Conference, thus the vast majority of BARLA team are concentrated in the sport's north of England heartlands.

Competitions

Originally, English clubs competed in a Championship divided into two county based leagues, as well as for county cups and the national Challenge Cup. Since 1995 and the move to a summer season, this structure has altered radically. Super League (Europe) now represents the top league for the game in England. It is the only full-time professional rugby league competition operating in the northern hemisphere, though currently all the teams are based in England. The French team, Paris St. Germain competed in the first Super League but folded in 1999. The French presence was re-established in 2006 when Les Catalans were admitted to Super League. Below Super League there are the Rugby League National Leagues. In 2006 Welsh team Celtic Crusaders joined National League two.

The Challenge Cup remains as a knockout competition, though entry has now been expanded to make it a pan-European tournament bringing in teams from France and Russia. Amateur teams also have the chance to partcipate in the Challenge Cup and have been victorious over several National League sides.

The leading amateur league in England is the National Conference League which is contested in winter.

The Rugby League Conference (played in summer) has many grass roots teams but is considered 'open' rather than amateur.

Popularity

Rugby league is extremely popular in its "heartland" and, in those areas, interest in the sport rivals that of soccer. Rugby League is considered by most English people to be a regional sport, which perhaps prevents rugby league making further inroads in to the English psyche in the South, and those cities which already thrive on soccer (football), and to a lesser extent, cricket and rugby union.

Perhaps because of its regional character, rugby league as a whole has a lower participation rate compared to the other three major sports in England. Rugby league has for much of its history been banned in the armed forces and in many schools and universities, further stifling growth. These barriers have largely been dismantled in the past ten years due to professionalisation of the rival code of rugby union.

Statistics

Rugby league is one of a number of sports vying for (distant) second place to soccer in the nation's affection. The MORI Sports Tracker [1] consistently reports that rugby league interests around 15% of British adults. It was the fourth most popular team sport in the February 2005 list behind football, cricket and rugby union. In 2004 the Rugby Football League reported 62,463 registered players (this is a UK-wide figure, though the majority of rugby league clubs in the UK are based in the northern counties of Cumbria, Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Yorkshire. Average attendance at Super League matches in 2005 was 8,887, with the aggregate across the season of 1,493,084. The attendances are not evenly spread between clubs within Super League; whilst the largest supported team, Leeds Rhinos had average gates of 17007, a couple of clubs failed to attract averages of above 4,000. Crowds at matches below the top flight can exceed 3,500, however most of the clubs in this division have attendances lower than this.

Media

There are two weekly rugby league, Rugby League Express with around 23,000 subscribers and League Weekly which around 11,000 subscribers and two monthly magazines, Rugby League World and Thirteen Magazine. In and around the heartlands these publications are stocked in newsagents but in the rest of the UK they are only available via subscription. [2]

Sky has the rights to show live Super League games; one or two live matches are broadcast often fronted by Mike Stephenson and Eddie Hemmings. Live Super League broadcasts regularly rank amongst the top 10 most watched programmes in a week on Sky Sports with in excess of 250,000 viewers. BBC Sport own the rights to broadcast a highlights package called the Super League Show but chosea to only broadcast this to the North West, Yorkshire & North Midlands, North East & Cumbria, and East Yorkshire & Lincolnshire regions. It can also be viewed over the internet in the UK. The BBC show Challenge Cup games with the final attracting over 4 million viewers. Manchester based Channel M show some National League and amateur rugby.

Sky also hold the rights to show the Rugby League Tri-Nations live, whilst highlights are shown on BBC Sport. Australia's National Rugby League and State of Origin were shown until 2005-06 season when Setanta Sports outbid Sky for the rights.

Demographics

The regions in which rugby league is played most are West Cumbria, where the amateur version has a high participation rate; south Lancashire outside the cities of Liverpool and Manchester; West Yorkshire and the city of Hull. The sport is present in South Yorkshire and in York, but only on a minor scale; it has little presence in the North East or the largely rural county of North Yorkshire. Neither is it played in great numbers elsewhere in England, although semi-professional and amateur clubs do exist in the lower national leagues and conference leagues.

Many of the professional and semi-professional teams are connected by the M62 motorway and so the term 'M62 corridor' is sometimes used, often in a derogatory manner, to refer to the area where rugby league is popular.

Many large towns with rugby league traditions do not have football teams as a result of the monopoly on local interest: for example, St Helens, Whitehaven, Warrington, Keighley, Castleford, Dewsbury, Batley and, until recently, Wakefield. It is striking how interest in rugby league can be very widespread in such towns whilst towns just a few miles away might be have hardly any fans of the sport.

Expansion by the governing body, the Rugby Football League sees continual but slow growth in the south of England, notably the London area, which now boast two professional clubs (Harlequins Rugby League formerly the London Broncos and London Skolars). One of the prime vehicles for expansion has been the Rugby League Conference, a set of competitions for clubs in those development areas.

As English society evolved, rugby league is no longer as closely fastened to its working-class roots as has it has traditionally been portrayed. Though the game remains close to its origins, changes in social demographics and attitudes have allowed many working class people to attend university where they have continued their association with the game.

The first university game was between Leeds and Liverpool in 1968. A year later the Universities and Colleges Rugby League was formed after student pioneers fought hard to get the sport recognised in higher education. The first Oxford versus Cambridge University match took place in 1981. The varsity match has 'discretionary full blue' status. The game is now played in over 70 Universities.

Due to the efforts of former Conservative party chairman Sir Edward du Cann, there is now a scholarship programme for Oxford University [3].

Current trends

The success of Super League in England and the return of competitive international matches with Australia and New Zealand have seen growth for the sport. There is heavy expansion in the south with conference competitions, and Harlequins RL (formerly London Broncos) still enjoying moderate success in the Super League.

The ending of discrimination against rugby league resulting from professionalism in rugby union led to an increase in numbers in the amateur game, with many rugby union amateurs keen to try out the other code. In 2004 the Rugby Football League was able to report a 94% increase in registered players in just two years, whilst attendance figures for Super League matches rose 8% from the 2003 season.

The annual Powergen Schools Cup competition from 2003 onwards has increased the number of school teams from 300 to 1,500 and the participation levels to 25,000 from 6,000.

Whilst rugby union was officially an amateur sport, many rugby union players came to play rugby league. In recent years this trend has reversed and some rugby league players have crossed codes to play union. [4]

The national team

Main article: England national rugby league team

England is represented in the World Cup (1977, 1995, 2000) and the World Sevens (2002, 2003). With the exception of the 1995 World Cup, matches involving England are not deemed to have Test status. Between 1935 and 2004 they also competed in the European Nations Cup. In recent years they had come to dominate this tournament, and in 2005 they withdrew to level the playing field.

England has historically provided the vast majority of players for the Great Britain team, one of the major national teams playing rugby league.

See also

• Sport in the United Kingdom

External links

• The Rugby Football League
• BARLA

References

• English History
• RFL Participation survey
• 2005 Super League attendance
• Tri line sports UK
• Rugby league on the BBC