The 1940s (Part 2)
World War Two had a massive impact on all sport in the County and although a number of Yorkshire clubs did manage to play regular fixtures during the War many closed down as soon as War was declared. Some clubs…
The 1930s (Part 1)
The decade began with a hundred Yorkshire clubs playing regular fixtures. That number hadn’t increased by very much at the end of the 1938/39 season but the number of clubs fielding more than two teams had. When the handbook for…
Have courage and run straight!
“Have courage and run straight”. Have you ever considered where Yorkshire RFU’s motto, ‘Fortiter et recte’, came from? In the early 1920s, Yorkshire RFU approached Walter Robinson, the headmaster of Prince Henry’s Grammar School Otley, with the brief to select…
A History of Yorkshire Cup: Part 3 – Between the Wars
Bob Oakes, Yorkshire's legendary secretary, worked tirelessly to restart the game across the County after the carnage of the First World War. Twenty-five clubs were stirred into life by the time the Cup competition was resumed in 1919/20. At a…
A History of Yorkshire Cup: Part 2 – From schism to War
Yorkshire's membership fell from a high of 150 in 1892 to a mere 14 ten years later as nearly every Cup winner up to the turn of the century formed part of the exodus to the Northern Union. A rule…
A History of Yorkshire Cup: Part 1 – From Start to schism
By 1874, representatives of the Bradford, Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds Athletic and York clubs were meeting as an informal committee to organise rugby affairs across Yorkshire's broad acres. From that small grouping arose the more formal Yorkshire County Football Club. It…
A White Rose in a Red Hand: Yorkshire fixtures against Ulster
Outside of the other five counties of the North – Cheshire, Cumbria, Durham, Lancashire and Northumberland, Yorkshire’s most regular opponents have been Ulster. The first encounter took place at Wakefield Trinity’s Belle Vue ground on 5th December 1887, Trinity supplying…
An unlikely Yorkshireman: Douglas Bader
Douglas Robert Steuart Bader was born in St John's Wood, London on 21st February 1910. He was the son of Frederick Roberts and Jessie Bader. When Douglas was a few months old, his family returned to India, where his father…
Eddie Myers – Yorkshire’s Rugby Genius
I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that Edward ‘Eddie’ Myers was the best player Yorkshire produced after the schism of 1895, coincidentally the year of his birth. Yorkshire Post journalist J.M Kilburn described Myers strengths... “He was the…