1972–73 League Cup (rugby league)

1972–73 League Cup

Structure

National knockout championship

Number of teams

Winners

Runners-up

< 1971–72	Seasons	1973–74 >

This was the second season of the League Cup, which was known as the Players No.6 Trophy for sponsorship reasons.

Leeds won the trophy by beating Salford 12-7 in the final. The match was played at Fartown, Huddersfield. The attendance was 10,102 and receipts were £4563.

Background

This season saw no changes in the entrants, no new members and no withdrawals, the number remaining at thirty-two.

Competition and Results^[1]^[2]^[3]

Round 1 - First Round

Involved 16 matches and 32 Clubs

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue	Att	Notes	Ref

1	Fri 22 Sep 1972	Hull KR	20-10	Castleford	Craven Park (1)
2	Sat 23 Sep 1972	Batley	26-3	Hunslet	Mount Pleasant
3	Sat 23 Sep 1972	Bramley	26-5	Pilkington Recs	McLaren Field	616	1, 2
4	Sat 23 Sep 1972	Halifax	20-22	St Helens	Thrum Hall	2446		^[4]
5	Sat 23 Sep 1972	Leigh	10-9	Workington Town	Hilton Park
6	Sat 23 Sep 1972	Whitehaven	11-16	Featherstone Rovers	Recreation Ground
7	Sun 24 Sep 1972	Barrow	2-17	Salford	Craven Park
8	Sun 24 Sep 1972	Blackpool Borough	9-51	Leeds	Borough Park		3
9	Sun 24 Sep 1972	Bradford Northern	32-6	Rochdale Hornets	Odsal
10	Sun 24 Sep 1972	Dewsbury	22-4	Dewsbury Celtic	Crown Flatt	1897	4
11	Sun 24 Sep 1972	Doncaster	7-22	Widnes	Bentley Road Stadium/Tattersfield			^[5]
12	Sun 24 Sep 1972	Huddersfield	23-15	Warrington	Fartown			^[6]^[7]
13	Sun 24 Sep 1972	Hull F.C.	17-10	Oldham	Boulevard			^[8]
14	Sun 24 Sep 1972	Swinton	29-10	Huyton	Station Road
15	Sun 24 Sep 1972	Wigan	10-34	Wakefield Trinity	Central Park		5	^[9]^[10]^[11]
16	Sun 24 Sep 1972	York	21-13	Keighley	Clarence Street

Round 2 - Second Round

Involved 8 matches and 16 Clubs

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue	Att	Notes	Ref

1	Fri 24 Nov 1972	Hull F.C.	9-4	Wakefield Trinity	Boulevard			^[8]^[9]^[10]
2	Fri 24 Nov 1972	St Helens	24-8	Featherstone Rovers	Knowsley Road	4800	6	^[4]
3	Fri 24 Nov 1972	Salford	19-3	Dewsbury	The Willows
4	Sat 25 Nov 1972	Leeds	21-3	Leigh	Headingley
5	Sun 26 Nov 1972	Bradford Northern	35-17	York	Odsal
6	Sun 26 Nov 1972	Hull KR	25-5	Bramley	Craven Park (1)
7	Sun 26 Nov 1972	Swinton	19-11	Huddersfield	Station Road			^[6]
8	Sun 26 Nov 1972	Widnes	21-8	Batley	Naughton Park			^[5]

Round 3 -Quarter Finals

Involved 4 matches with 8 clubs

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue	Notes	Ref

1	Fri 8 Dec 1972	Hull KR	A	Swinton	Craven Park (1)	7
2	Sat 9 Dec 1972	St Helens	10-3	Widnes	Knowsley Road		^[4]^[5]
3	Sun 10 Dec 1972	Hull F.C.	18-18	Leeds	Boulevard	8	^[8]
4	Sun 10 Dec 1972	Salford	39-2	Bradford Northern	The Willows	9

Round 3 -Quarter Finals - Replays

Involved 2 matches with 4 clubs

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue

1	Wed 13 Dec 1972	Hull KR	30-6	Swinton	Craven Park (1)
2	Tue 12 Dec 1972	Leeds	37-5	Hull F.C.	Headingley

Round 4 – Semi-Finals

Involved 2 matches and 4 Clubs

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue	Att	Ref

1	Sat 30 Dec 1972	Hull KR	13-15	Salford	Craven Park (1)
2	Sat 13 Jan 1973	Leeds	19-0	St Helens	Headingley	5854	^[4]

Final

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team		Score		Away Team	Venue	Att	Rec	Notes	Ref

	Saturday 24 March 1973	Leeds		12-7		Salford	Fartown	10102	4563	10	^[12]^[13]

Teams and Scorers^[12]^[13]

Leeds	№	Salford

	teams
John Holmes	1	Paul Charlton
Alan Smith	2	Anthony "Tony" Colloby
Syd Hynes	3	David Watkins
Les Dyl	4	Chris Hesketh
John Atkinson	5	Maurice Richards
Alan Hardisty	6	Ken Gill
Keith Hepworth	7	Peter Banner
Terry Clawson	8	John Ward
Tony Fisher	9	T. Ramshaw
David Jeanes	10	G. Mackay
Bob Haigh	11	A. Grice
Phil Cookson	12	William Kirkbride
Graham Eccles	13	Colin Dixon
David Ward (for Terry Clawson)	14	P. Ward (for Ken Gill)
P. Pickup (for Tony Fisher)	15	D. Davies (for A. Grice)
	Coach

12	score	7
10	HT	5

	Scorers
	Tries
John Atkinson (2)	T	Colin Dixon (1)
	Goals
John Holmes (1)	G	David Watkins (2)
Terry Clawson (2)	G

Referee		William "Billy" H. Thompson (Huddersfield)
Man of the match		Keith Hepworth - Leeds - Scrum-half/Halfback
Competition Sponsor		Player's №6

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

Prize Money

As part of the sponsorship deal and funds, the prize money awarded to the competing teams for this season is as follows :-

Finish Position	Cash Prize	No. receiving prize	Total Cash

Winner	?	1	?
Runner-up	?	1	?
semi-finalist	?	2	?
loser in Rd 3	?	4	?
loser in Rd 2	?	8	?
Loser in Rd 1	?	16	?
Loser in Prelim Round	?	?	?

Grand Total

Note - the author is unable to trace the award amounts for this season. Can anyone help ?

The road to success

First Round		Second Round		Third Round		Semi Finals		Final


Hull F.C.	17

Oldham	10
		Hull F.C.	9

		Wakefield Trinity	4
Wigan	10

Wakefield Trinity	34
				Hull F.C.	18 (5)

				Leeds	18 (37)
Blackpool Borough	9

Leeds	51
		Leeds	21

		Leigh	3
Leigh	10

Workington Town	9
						Leeds	19

						St Helens	0
Halifax	20

St Helens	22
		St Helens	24

		Featherstone Rovers	8
Whitehaven	11

Featherstone Rovers	16
				St Helens	10

				Widnes	3
Doncaster	7

Widnes	22
		Widnes	21

		Batley	8
Batley	26

Hunslet	3
								Leeds	12

								Salford	7
Hull KR	20

Castleford	10
		Hull KR	25

		Bramley	5
Bramley	26

Pilkington Recs	5
				Hull KR	30

				Swinton	6
Swinton	29

Huyton	10
		Swinton	19

		Huddersfield	11
Huddersfield	23

Warrington	15
						Hull KR	13

						Salford	15
Barrow	2

Salford	17
		Salford	19

		Dewsbury	3
Dewsbury	22

Dewsbury Celtic	4
				Salford	39

				Bradford Northern	2
Bradford Northern	32

Rochdale Hornets	6
		Bradford Northern	35

		York	17
York	21

Keighley	13

Notes and comments

1 * Pilkington Recs are a Junior (amateur) club from St Helens, home ground was City Road until they moved to Ruskin Drive from 2011-12 ^[12]^[13]
2 * Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1990-1991,^[12] Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1991-1992,^[13] and RUGBYLEAGUEproject^[1] give the score as 26-5 but News of the World Football Annual 1973-74^[2] gives the score as 28-5
3 * highest score to date
4 * Dewsbury Celtic are a Junior (amateur) club from Dewsbury, home ground is Crow Nest Park
5 * RUGBYLEAGUEproject^[1] gives score as 10-28 but the Wigan official archives^[3] and 100 Years of Rugby. The History of Wakefield Trinity 1873-1973^[9] and Wakefield until I die^[10] all give the score as 10-34
6 * News of the World Football Annual 1973-74^[2] gives score as 24-3 but both RUGBYLEAGUEproject^[1] and Wigan official archives^[3] give it as 24-8
7 * Abandoned after 22 Minutes due to Fog with the score at 4-2 - Result declared void^[3]
8 * NO mention on Hull official website^[8] of any replay
9 * News of the World Football Annual 1973-74^[2] gives the score as 30-2 but both RUGBYLEAGUEproject^[1] and Wigan official archives^[3] give it as 39-2
10 * Fartown was the home ground of Huddersfield from 1878 to the end of the 1991-92 season to Huddersfield Town FC's Leeds Road stadium, and then to the McAlpine Stadium in 1994. Fartown remained as a sports/Rugby League ground but is now rather dilapidated, and is only used for staging amateur rugby league games.
Due to lack of maintenance, terrace closures and finally major storm damage closing one of the stands in 1986, the final ground capacity had been reduced to just a few thousands although the record attendance was set in a Challenge cup semi-final on 19 April 1947 when a crowd of 35,136 saw Leeds beat Wakefield Trinity 21-0

General information for those unfamiliar

The council of the Rugby Football League voted to introduce a new competition, to be similar to The Football Association and Scottish Football Association's "League Cup". It was to be a similar knock-out structure to, and to be secondary to, the Challenge Cup. As this was being formulated, sports sponsorship was becoming more prevalent and as a result John Player and Sons, a division of Imperial Tobacco Company, became sponsors, and the competition never became widely known as the "League Cup"
The competition ran from 1971-72 until 1995-96 and was initially intended for the professional clubs plus the two amateur BARLA National Cup finalists. In later seasons the entries were expanded to take in other amateur and French teams. The competition was dropped due to "fixture congestion" when Rugby League became a summer sport 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 usually taking place in late January
The competition was variably known, by its sponsorship name, as the Player's No.6 Trophy (1971–1977), the John Player Trophy (1977–1983), the John Player Special Trophy (1983–1989), and the Regal Trophy in 1989.

References

1 2 3 4 5 "Rugby League Project".
1 2 3 4 Frank Butler and Patrick Collins (1973). News of the World Football Annual 1973-74 - 87th year. News of the World Ltd.
1 2 3 4 5 "Wigan "Cherry and White" Players Trophy results".
1 2 3 4 "Saints Heritage Society - History - Season 1896-97".
1 2 3 "Widnes Vikings - History - Season In Review - 1896-97".
1 2 "Huddersfield Rugby League Heritage" (PDF).
↑ "Warrington Wolves - Results Archive - 1897". Archived from the original on 2014-02-02.
1 2 3 4 "HULL&PROUD - Stats - Fixtures & Results".
1 2 3 J C Lindley and D W Armitage (1973). 100 Years of Rugby. The History of Wakefield Trinity 1873-1973. Wakefield Trinity Centenary Committee. ISBN 0 35617852 8.
1 2 3 "Wakefield until I die".
↑ "Wigan "Cherry and White" archived results".
1 2 3 4 Raymond Fletcher and David Howes (1990). Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1990-1991. Queen Anne Press. ISBN 0 35617851 X.
1 2 3 4 Raymond Fletcher and David Howes (1991). Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1991-1992. Queen Anne Press. ISBN 0 35617852 8.

External links

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