Rugby league is played at a school level in many schools in the rugby league heartlands of the traditional counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumberland; recently it has been introduced into some schools outside the traditional areas in particular in London, Essex and Hertfordshire. Thirty-three percent of schools across the UK offer rugby league as a school sport.[ citation needed ]
Charlie Bray is the youth league representative on the Community Board.
The RFL launched the Young Peoples Advisory Panel in 2010, a group consisting of young people aged 16–25 from across England. The national panel meet three times a year at the RFL's Red Hall headquarters to discuss and debate the following:
Changes in the structure of youth rugby; Communications between young rugby league enthusiasts and the RFL; RFL policies which impact on young people.
Two nominated members will also sit on the Youth & Junior Forum, a key device used to advance youth rugby league. [1]
Both males and females can play youth and junior rugby league, in fact from under-7 up to the under-11 teams are of mixed gender. The age groups at clubs run from under-7 all the way up to under-18 and at present there are around 500 clubs. There are currently more than 30 community clubs who have developed female sections, with over 600 girls aged between 11 and 16 registered to play for sides at the under-12, under-14 and under-16 age groups.
The Rugby Football League uses two modified forms of rugby league created by ARL Development in Australia. Mini league (known as mini footy in Australia) is played by all children up to Year 4 of Primary School. It is designed to provide children with a safe environment, a firm knowledge of the laws of rugby league and a chance to practice the skills such as tackling, passing and common defensive and attacking tactics. Players up to and including Year 6 of Primary School play mod league. Mod league is a bridge between mini league and full contact rugby league. On completion of mod league, players make a move to full international rugby league laws.
Tag rugby, touch rugby and rugby league nines are also widely used to introduce young children to the sport of rugby league.
English Schools Rugby League was formed in 1967 following talks between the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. It was formed to enable the organising and playing of International games, to act as one body for the disbursement of Grant Aid received from the RFL and to act as an organising body to spread the game and to be a forum for committed and expert opinion.
The Champion Schools tournament is a national competition for secondary schools. The RFL in partnership with English Schools Rugby League re-launched the Champion Schools Tournament in 2002 and since then it has continued to grow each year.
In the 2005/6 academic year over 1,200 teams and 20,000 players competed in the Champion Schools tournament, making it the largest rugby league competition in the world. [2] Eighty percent of participants are new to rugby league. [3] The growth of the Champion Schools tournament led to the creation of the Carnegie Champion Colleges competition for Years 12 and 13. The regionally based competition was introduced in 2008 and started in January. [4]
British Amateur Rugby League Association runs the Gilette National Youth League as well as the Yorkshire combination, West Riding Youth League, Hull & District Youth League, North West Counties U15 - U13, North West Counties U8 - U12 and North West Counties Youth. There are county cups at age group level, known as the Yorkshire Youth Cup, Lancashire Youth Cup and the Cumbria Youth Cup.
The non-heartlands junior leagues include the Chilterns Junior Rugby League, London Junior League, North East Junior League, Midlands Junior League and Bristol Junior Rugby League.
Professional and semi-professional teams run academy sides to develop young talent. The Academy under- 18 league was introduced in 1991.
The under-20s Super League competition is a full league with twenty rounds and top six play-offs. The under-18s, under-16s and under-15s are non-competitive and feature eight rounds in under-18s and six in under-16s and under-15s. Championship and Championship 1 sides have their own reserve grade.
The under-18s is open to either Super League clubs or Championship sides that meet very stringent criteria. The under-16s and under-15s are open to all Super League, Championship and Championship 1 sides.
The Origin Series, previously War of the Roses, was the inter-county rugby league matches between representative teams from Yorkshire and Lancashire, the areas where rugby league has traditionally been most popular in England.
The Rugby Football League is the governing body for professional rugby league in England. The name Rugby Football League previously also referred to the main league competition run by the organisation. This has since been supplanted by Super League, the Championship and League 1.
The British Amateur Rugby League Association (BARLA) is an association for social and recreational rugby league. It works jointly with the Rugby Football League through the RFL Community Board.
The Yorkshire League and the Lancashire League formed two sections of the Rugby Football League Championship for much of its history. Initially, the 22 clubs that broke away in 1895 played in one combined league; however, the following season saw the addition of many clubs, and the League was split into two separate county competitions.
Durham Tigers are a rugby league club based in Sunnydale Leisure Centre, Shildon, County Durham in the North East of England. They originally played in the city of Durham. The city of Durham is now represented in the Rugby League Conference by Durham Demons.
Rugby league is played across England but is most popular in Northern England, especially Yorkshire and Lancashire where the game originated. These areas are the heartland of rugby league. The sport is also popular in Cumbria where the amateur game is particularly powerful.
The British rugby league system is based on a five-tier structure administered by the Rugby Football League.
The Champion Schools tournament is a full contact knock-out rugby league football competition open to every secondary school in England, Scotland and Wales and is the largest rugby league tournament in the World "RFL-13-05-07" The competition is operated by the Rugby Football League (RFL) and the English Schools Rugby League (ESRL). There are competitions for boys and girls in school year groups 7-11, pupil ages 11–16.
Scarborough Pirates ARLFC was the name of an amateur rugby league team which competed in the Rugby League Conference Yorkshire Premier and British Amateur Rugby League Association winter leagues. The club was based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England.
The 1983–84 Rugby Football League season was the 89th ever season of professional rugby league football in Britain. Sixteen teams competed from August, 1983 until May, 1984 for the Slalom Lager Championship.
The 1935–36 Rugby Football League season was the 41st season of rugby league football. Thirty teams competed in a single league Championship. The Challenge Cup was contested for the 36th time and the second European Championship took place.
The 1955–56 Rugby Football League season was the leagues's 61st season.
The 1964–65 Rugby Football League season was the 70th season of rugby league football.
The 1967–68 Rugby Football League season was the 73rd season of rugby league football.
Rugby league is a popular sport in Northern England and south Wales, and to a lesser extent in Scotland, Ireland, and other parts of England and Wales. It is organised separately in each of these countries, and also on an all-Ireland basis, with Northern Ireland and the independent Republic of Ireland playing together.
Keighley Rugby Union Football Club is a Rugby Union club based in Keighley, West Yorkshire, England. The club currently play in Yorkshire 2.
Runcorn RFC was a rugby league club. They joined the Northern Union in 1895, just several days after it was founded, and played in the league from 1895–96 to 1917–18.
The RFL Yorkshire Cup is a rugby league county cup competition for teams in Yorkshire. Starting in 1905 the competition ran, with the exception of 1915 to 1918, until the 1992–93 season, when it folded due to fixture congestion. In 2019, the competition was relaunched as a pre-season tournament, but not all Yorkshire clubs were invited, hence it is not a legitimate running of the competition, and was not played for ahead of the 2020 season
The 1924–25 Challenge Cup was the 25th staging of rugby league's oldest knockout competition, the Challenge Cup.
The RFU Junior Vase is a rugby union national knockout cup competition in England run by the Rugby Football Union, which has been competed for since 1990. It is mostly contested by 1st XV teams at level 9 of the English rugby union system, although sides as low as level 12 or even outside the league system can sometimes enter. The competition is a national one, but split into regions until the national semi-finals with the final being held at Twickenham Stadium in London. Presently, the RFU Junior Vase is the fifth most important club cup competition in England, behind the Premiership Rugby Cup, RFU Championship Cup, RFU Intermediate Cup and RFU Senior Vase.
