Clubs > Ovenden > The new Century

The new Century

With the Ovenden club flourishing and providing for ever more teams at junior level and including girls Rugby League as well all seemed to bode well for a bright future,

Indeed, the first team played in the first two Halifax Cup Finals of the new century. They were beaten by Siddal in 2000-01 but bounced back to defeat Illingworth in the following year. Success continued with victory in the Halifax Championship Final: Steve Taylor’s side, including Yorkshire County player Tom McAdam, defeated Illingworth

Regaining a place in the National Conference League remained a target for the club who started the 2000’s in the Pennine League. In 2004, Ovenden got their wish and were duly re-elected to the National Conference and started the 2004-05 season in the NCL Division 2.

A match programme was produced for each game and once again the best of amateur Rugby League came to Four Fields. In their second season, 2005-06, Ovenden were promoted to the NCL Division 1 where they stayed for only one season before being relegated to Division 2 in 2007.

However, in 2009 the Ovenden club was riding high, reporting in their Club Mark Gold submission that they had 50 volunteers and over 200 players across 2 open age teams, boys U15 to U18 teams together with girls U13 (two teams), U15 and U16 teams. They were also looking to establish the junior modified section from Emerging 8s to U12s, a Senior Ladies team as well as Masters and Rugby Tots. The Ovenden club looking to take forward the tradition of the club in providing the people, especially the young people, of the area with the opportunity to participate in both Rugby League and the social aspects of the club.

Throughout the Noughties, Ovenden continued their run of qualifying for the first round of the Rugby League Challenge Cup, first doing so in 2002 and then starting a run of 8 consecutive seasons of qualification between 2005 and 2012.

Ovenden continued in the National Conference until 2015 when they resigned citing lack of players and finance to continue. They returned to the Pennine League, playing in the Premier Division.

Although 2018 began with a defeat to Castleford’s Lock Lane at Featherstone RLFC in the Yorkshire Challenge Cup Final, Ovenden went on to have their most successful year for decades. Coached by England International, Jake Connor, they won a handsome treble. The two Pennine League Trophies, the Pennine President’s Cup – Graham Charlesworth scored four tries in the final victory – and the Pennine Championship together with one final success in the Halifax Cup where they defeated Greetland All Rounders by 58-10 in the final.

That game was refereed by well-known, first-class official Tony Martin. The Halifax Courier reported the final was played in front of

“a decent crowd, toasting in the Bank Holiday Monday sunshine, (who) saw them run in 11 tries against lower-division opponents who led 6-4 after the first quarter before being over-run.”

https://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/ovenden-complete-fine-treble-294104

Even after the club returned to the Pennine League, the first team managed to qualify for the Rugby League Challenge Cup again in 2019.

Ovenden also made one final appearance in the Halifax (Fee) Cup Final in 2019 finishing runners up by 12-10 in yet another ferocious battle with arch-rivals Siddal.

By this time, the Ovenden clubhouse had closed and the club were once again using the adjacent Forrest Cottage which had been refurbished and new state of the art changing facility extension was being built with grants monies.

In 2020 after four successful years in the Pennine League, the Ovenden club took the decision to move back to summer Rugby League – again coached by Hull and England star Jake Connor – and making their debut in Division 1 of the Yorkshire Men’s League. The club had at the time received funds to improve their facilities from the Rugby League World Cup 2021’s CreatedBy grant programme.

Coach Jake Connor was positive at the time saying in interview.
“After having numerous successful winter seasons, we feel the need to be playing in a more structured set up and find the YML is the perfect platform for us to do that.
“We plan on having a really good go in Division One this summer and our aim is to get promotion and build a team ready to challenge for the title in years to come, especially as we will have excellent facilities for the guys by then. I’m looking forward to the season ahead.”