Halifax Supporters Junior ARLFC
A team which appeared in a couple of guises through the 1950’s and 1960’s providing young Halifax supporters the opportunity to play.
Halifax Rugby League club has a good level of support throughout the years.
Back in the 1920’s, Supporters’ Clubs appeared in many Rugby League towns. Halifax started theirs in 1923 and formed a junior team. Initially matches were against youngsters from other Supporters’ Clubs, but soon they also played local junior teams. In 1928 they met North Dean in a junior Halifax Cup Final at Thrum Hall.
The Halifax Supporters team also entered the Halifax Bowl competition which was for teams and schools under 16’s in the early years of the 1920’s.
The Halifax Supporters continued to play ad hoc games against other clubs’ supporters team organised by the Yorkshire Federation of Supporters’ Clubs and also friendlies against local sides. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Halifax Supporters team took over the fixtures of Greetland as their players had been called up for military service. Halifax Supporters, by then an Under-21team, beat Albion Rams in the Halifax Championship Final at Thrum Hall. A great victory since the Rams had previously been almost unbeatable for three years!
The team continued to play during the War years and even started another team in the Under 17 age group.
During the fifties the parent Halifax club had a large presence in the town. There were requests from the Halifax & District Rugby League for grants/sponsorship from the Halifax Supporters Club. There were also requests from the Supporters club for the District Rugby League to help organise curtain raiser games prior to professional games. One example is a request to help with a game prior to Halifax playing Bradford Northern at Odsal. The District committee did write to Northern but a later Management meeting minute shows no reply was received!
It was not until the 1960’s that a formal Supporters team applied to join the Halifax League. They did this with an Under 17 team in 1962-63 and they registered 23 players mainly from the King Cross, Pellon and Illingworth areas. The team also entered the Halifax U17 Challenge Cup along with St Malachy’s U17 and Illingworth U17’s and they drew a bye through to the final!
They met St. Malachy’s who had beaten Illingworth in the semi-final, but the result of the final is unknown.
The team continued until 1965-66 season when the team was withdrawn from the league in April 1966 before the end of that season. Records show that 7 players left with registrations cancelled on 15th April. The Supporters had also entered an Under 19 team for the 1965-66 season and this team completed the year. They had 17 players signed on at the beginning of the season and the eighteenth who joined from the Nondescripts in December 1965 was Dave “Nosey” Parker!
Dave has good memories of his time playing junior Rugby League. When he joined the Halifax Supporters, he described one game
“I played for Halifax Supporters U18’s at the Barracks in a local cup final one evening. A great atmosphere with 1500 spectators around the touchlines.”
George Simpson who played for Boothtown U17’s recalls
“we played Halifax Supporters U17’s up at Roils Head and every player on the team (Boothtown’s U17’s) scored a try!”
The second iteration of the Halifax Supporters team was in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The team was formed at the Rugby League Social Club which was the base for the Halifax Supporters club located at the bottom of Gibbet Street. There was already a Cheers Leaders team and an advert was placed in the Halifax Courier regarding the formation of a Young Supporters Club. It was Malcolm Kielty’s (now) wife, Pat, and her friend, Liz Cryer, who were instrumental in setting up this new club.
This junior club was formed and Michael Hagus, team Manager/coach who later went on to be a Halifax RLFC Director, got permission to rent a shop at the bottom of King Cross Road – in the days before the Burdock Way flyover. This became a Youth Club and the Halifax Junior Supporters U17 Rugby League team was formed. There was, however, a specific problem with playing in Halifax as the U17 competition played on Saturday, the same day that the young supporters wanted to go watch Halifax.
So, the decision was taken, much to the disquiet of the Halifax competition, to join the Bradford and District U 17 league which played games on a Sunday morning. The Bradford U 17 league included Leeds Supporters, (who played at the Buslingthorpe Vale) and the Sedburgh Club in Bradford. The Supporters even played a couple of curtain raisers at Odsal. Moe games were generally at Roils Head but occasionally permission was obtained to play at Thrum Hall.
Malcolm Kielty explained
“I believe it was the last time that a Halifax Supporters’ club team was formed out of actual teenage supporters, many of whom went on to play in the amateur game for many years”.
Pictured above are:
Malcolm Kielty (left) Chris Hamer, Andrew Hardcastle, Roy Watter, Alan Morrison, Robert Jackson and Donald Sunderland.
Eventually the team split and several players continued to play at Bradshaw and at Siddal.