1940–41 Northern Rugby Football League Wartime Emergency League season

League

Northern Rugby League Wartime Emergency League

1940–41 Season

Wigan

< 1939–40	Seasons	1941–42 >

The 1940–41 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the second season of the rugby league’s Wartime Emergency League necessitated by the Second World War.
In this second Wartime season, the clubs each played a different number of games and several clubs dropped out.

General Comments

Season summary

The 1939–40 season began on Saturday 7 September 1940, less than three months after the fall of France and the other Western Allies, and the Dunkirk evacuations.

The Northern Rugby League decided to continue with a similar format of the two regional (Lancashire and Yorkshire), Wartime Emergency Leagues, with the winner of each league meeting in a play-off final to decide the overall winner.

In the Yorkshire League Bradford Northern finished the regular season on top of the league (47 points from 25 games), clear leaders by 7 points, even after playing a game less than second place Hull (40 points from 26 games) and seventeen points clear of 3rd place Huddersfield (30 points from 25 games).

Meanwhile in the depleted Lancashire League Wigan (a magnificent 31 points from 16 matches) beat second placed Warrington by 5 points.

Bradford Northern went on to defeat Wigan 45–15 (on aggregate) in the two legged play-off final.^[1] and win the Championship (for the second consecutive season)

The Wartime Emergency Leagues did not count as an official league championship.

In the Final of the Challenge Cup, Leeds beat Halifax at Odsal by 15–10 before a crowd of 15,250.

The Lancashire Cup, was suspended for the rest of the war and so Wigan competed in the Yorkshire Cup.

Bradford Northern beat Dewsbury at Fartown Ground, Huddersfield, before a crowd of 13,316 by a score of 15–5 to win the Yorkshire Cup.

Change in Club participation

In addition to St Helens Recs, several other clubs withdrew from the competitions :-

Barrow – The club dropped out of the wartime Lancashire league after the ‘first (1939–40) season. They did not return to league competition until 1943–44. As many of the pre-war ‘players had retired, this return began an era of rebuilding and recruiting.
Hull Kingston Rovers – The club dropped out of the wartime Lancashire league after the ‘first (1939–40) season. They did not return to league competition until 1945–46 peacetime season.
Rochdale Hornets – Hornets dropped out of the wartime Lancashire League, their last match ‘a 12–4 defeat against Salford at the Athletic Grounds on 11 May 1940. ‘The ground stood empty for the duration of hostilities and after the war, an appeal went out ‘to supporters in July 1945 for help in renovating the ground, pitch and ‘premises so that ‘rugby league could restart.
Widnes – As Barrow and Hull Kingston Rovers, Widnes dropped out of the wartime Lancashire league after (1939–40) season and did not return to league competition until 1945–46.

Dewsbury had a relatively successful time during the war years. Managed by Eddie Waring, and with the side boosted by the inclusion of a number of big-name guest players, the club won the Wartime Emergency League in 1941–42 and again the following season 1942–43 (though that championship was declared null and void when it was discovered they had played an ineligible player). They were also runners-up in the Championship in 1943–44, Challenge Cup winners in 1943 and Yorkshire Cup final appearances in this season 1940–41 and winners in 1942–43.

Records

Broughton Rangers and Leigh joined the ranks of the clubs with the unenviable record of losing every league match during the season.
Both clubs withdrew from competitions for the following seasons.
A full list to date of all clubs with this record is as follows :-

Lost all league matches in a season
	Club	season	League	Cup	Notes	Ref
	Broughton Rangers	1940–41	10 War Lancashire League	1 Cup-tie		^[2]
	Leigh	1940–41	13 War Lancashire League	1 Cup-tie		^[2]
Other clubs with the same equal record
	Liverpool City	1906–07	30** League	2 Cup-ties	**	^[2]
	Bramley	1941–42	19 War Emergency League	4 Cup-ties		^[2]
	Runcorn Highfield	1989–90	28 Division Two	3 Cup-ties		^[2]
	Nottingham City	1991–92	26 Division Three	3 Cup-ties		^[2]
**	Also lost to Pontefract, but this match was expunged from League records after Pontefract disbanded					^[2]
**	Also drew against Bramley but this was expunged from the records as the return match was cancelled					^[2]

Bramley would join them as holder of this record in the season which followed 1941–42

Yorkshire Section

	Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	diff	Pts
1	Bradford Northern	25	23	1	1	469	126	343	47
2	Hull	26	20	0	6	341	227	114	40
3	Huddersfield	25	14	2	9	422	297	125	30
4	Leeds	25	14	1	10	372	235	137	29
5	Halifax	22	14	0	8	357	229	128	28
6	Hunslet	25	14	0	11	328	279	49	28
7	Featherstone Rovers	24	14	0	10	255	255	0	28
8	Wakefield Trinity	23	12	0	11	237	214	23	24
9	Castleford	24	11	0	13	224	239	−15	22
10	Dewsbury	23	6	2	15	238	301	−63	14
11	Keighley	26	5	1	20	200	447	−247	11
12	Bramley	21	5	1	15	129	364	−235	11
13	York	23	5	0	18	227	388	−161	10
14	Batley	20	5	0	15	148	344	−196	10

Heading Abbreviations
RL = Single Division; Pl = Games Played: W = Win; D = Draw; L = Lose; PF = Points For; PA = Points Against; Diff = Points Difference (+ or -); Pts = League Points
% Pts = A percentage system was used to determine league positions due to clubs playing varying number of fixtures and against different opponents
League points: for win = 2; for draw = 1; for loss = 0.

Lancashire Section

	Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	diff	Pts
1	Wigan	16	15	1	0	297	71	226	31
2	Warrington	16	13	0	3	236	42	194	26
3	St Helens	14	10	1	3	280	83	197	21
4	Salford	14	9	0	5	216	95	121	18
5	Oldham	16	6	1	9	161	205	−44	13
6	Swinton	13	6	0	7	121	132	−11	12
7	Liverpool Stanley	14	2	1	11	147	270	−123	5
8	Broughton Rangers	10	0	0	10	71	247	−176	0
9	Leigh	13	0	0	13	62	446	−384	0

Championship Play-Off

1st leg – Wigan lost to Bradford Northern 6–17 at Central Park – att 11,245 & receipts £640.0.0.^[3]

2nd leg – Bradford Northern beat Wigan 28–9 at Odsal – att 20,205 & receipts £1,148.0.0.^[3]

Champions – Bradford Northern won 45–15 on aggregate

Trophies

Challenge Cup

The Challenge Cup Competition was re-introduced after a season’s absence

Some of the fixtures and results are as follows :- ^[1] ^[4] ^[5] ^[3] ^[6] ^[7]

In the 1st round, on Saturday 19 April 1941, Batley beat Hull at Mount Pleasant 9–8.^[5]

In the 2nd round, on Wednesday 19 March 1941, Wakefield Trinity beat Wigan^[1] at Belle Vue 22–0 and on Saturday 16 March 1941, Castleford beat St Helens^[4] 21–13 at Wheldon Road.

In the Final of the Challenge Cup, Leeds beat Halifax at Odsal by 19–2 before a crowd of 28,500.^[3]

Lancashire Cup

The Lancashire Cup was suspended for this season for the duration of the war.

Wigan took part in the Yorkshire Cup Competition

Yorkshire Cup

Some of the fixtures and results are as follows :-

In the 1st round, on Saturday 15 March 1941, York beat Hull^[5] at Boulevard 22–15 and Leeds beat Wigan^[1] at Central Park 9–3.

In the Final of the Yorkshire County Cup, Bradford Northern beat Dewsbury at Fartown by 15–5 before a crowd of 13,316 and with receipts of £939.00.^[3]

References

1 2 3 4 "Cherry and white".
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "RFL all time records".
1 2 3 4 5 Raymond Fletcher and David Howes (1990). Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1990–91. Queen Anne Press. ISBN 0-356-17851-X.
1 2 "Saints Heritage Society".
1 2 3 <"Hull&Proud".
↑ "Widnes Vikings – One team, one passion Season In Review".
↑ "Warrington History".

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