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Winning All Four Cups referred to winning all four competitions available to a British rugby league side in the top division between 1907 and 1970. The cups available to win were the First Division Championship, Challenge Cup, county league (Lancashire League or Yorkshire League) and county cup (Lancashire Cup or Yorkshire Cup). The feat was achieved on three occasions.
Between 1907 and 1970 there were four trophies available to any British rugby league side:
Following the abolition of the county league in 1970, "all four cups" could no longer be won. The county cups were abolished in 1993.
The first club to win All Four Cups was Hunslet, which they did in the 1907–08 season. They were captained by Albert Goldthorpe, who operated in the back line. Hunslet's forward pack of that season was equally famous, going by the name of "The Terrible Six".
Hunslet did not top the championship table at the end of the season, coming behind Oldham, whom they defeated, 10–12, in a championship replay after the first match was drawn 7 apiece. [1] They ran out 14–0 winners in the Challenge Cup Final in front of 18,000 spectators at Fartown, Huddersfield. They took the Yorkshire Cup by virtue of a 17–0 victory over Halifax.
The feat was next repeated by Huddersfield in the 1914–15 season by the Fartowners famous "Team of all Talents". [2] This was the culmination of a staggering period of dominance in the game, as they had already picked up two championships, the challenge cup, three Yorkshire Cups and three Yorkshire league titles in the preceding five seasons.
They were captained by Harold Wagstaff, [3] immortalised as the "Prince of Centres", and included several foreign internationals. They easily defeated Leeds, 35–2, in the Championship final, and managed an even greater margin of victory in the Challenge Cup, crushing St. Helens, 37–3, at Oldham.
The season saw Huddersfield's wing-three-quarter Albert Rosenfeld score an impressive 56 tries. However this figure paled into insignificance when it is remembered that Rosenfeld, a Jewish Australian who had come over to Britain with the 1908 Kangaroos, had scored 80 tries the previous season. This record has never yet been beaten.
The First World War intervened, and the team broke up. The Huddersfield club was unable to field a team, reforming only after the war ended.
The final team to win All Four Cups was Swinton, [4] who thus became the only side ever to achieve a Lancashire version of the feat. The 1927–28 Northern Rugby Football League season saw the Lions sweep aside all before them, under the captaincy of centre Hector Halsall. They topped both the League and the Lancashire League, having already defeated Wigan in the Lancashire Cup. In a tense Challenge Cup final they squeezed past Warrington 5-3, and three weeks later the Holy Grail was achieved when they comfortably eased past Featherstone Rovers 11-0 to take the Championship.
1908 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.
The Huddersfield Giants are an English professional rugby league club from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. Huddersfield play their home games at the John Smiths Stadium and compete in Super League, the top tier of British rugby league.
Oldham Rugby League Football Club, is a professional rugby league football club based in Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. The club plays home games at Boundary Park and competes in League One, the third tier of British rugby league.
Kenneth Traill was an English professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s and 1950s, and coached in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He played at representative level for Great Britain, England and Yorkshire, and at club level for Hunslet, Bradford Northern, Halifax and Wakefield Trinity, as a loose forward, and coached at club level for Wakefield Trinity.
Albert Edward Goldthorpe was an English rugby footballer from the period around 1895's schism in English rugby, which led to the formation of rugby league football around the turn of the century.
Brian Briggs was an English professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1950s and 1960s. He played at representative level for Great Britain, England and Yorkshire, and at club level for York, Huddersfield, St. Helens and Wakefield Trinity, as a second-row.
The 1907–08 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the 13th season of rugby league football.
The 1908–09 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the 14th season of rugby league football in the United Kingdom.
The 1911–12 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the 17th season of rugby league football.
The 1913–14 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the 19th season of rugby league football.
The 1914–15 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the 20th season of rugby league football. It featured Huddersfield's "Team of all talents" which became the second team to win all four cups.
The 1921–22 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the 27th season of rugby league football.
The 1929–30 Rugby Football League season was the 35th season of rugby league football.
The 1931–32 Rugby Football League season was the 37th season of rugby league football in northern England.
The 1933–34 Rugby Football League season was the 39th season of rugby league football. The first rugby league club in London, London Highfield competed in its inaugural season.
The 1937–38 Rugby Football League season was the 43rd season of rugby league football.
The 1962–63 Northern Rugby Football League season was the 68th season of rugby league football.
1942–43 Yorkshire Cup
Whilst the sport of rugby league is played across Great Britain, it is most popular in its heartlands, the traditional counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire with the majority of professional and semi-professional clubs coming from this area of the country. Many fixtures are considered to be local derbies, where both teams come from the same town or city, or two that are very close to each other.
Hunslet F.C. was a professional rugby league club based in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The club was a founding member of the Rugby Football League in 1895.
