Pellon

A local area team in Pellon who played periodically in the inter-war years and again in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s.

The earlier Pellon teams left little written history but two significant photos still exist.

The first shows the Pellon team of 1913-4 and Thomas Gledhill who was a publican and presumably had the pub the team ran from which is pictured.

 

 

 

 

The second shows the Pellon team from 1925-26 and Thomas Gledhill’s son, Arthur Gledhill, (born 1906) is in the photo. Arthur went on to sign for Halifax in 1927.

Although there were earlier Rugby League teams under the Pellon using the same Roils Head field but it was the 1948 that the best known Pellon team was founded.

The 1948 club fielded both open-age through to the1956-57 season and an U17/U18 team until the end of the1953-54 season. In the years after the end of the Second World War, players with wooden or other artificial legs were allowed to play wearing long trousers and they could not be tackled around the legs.

Although they were not major trophy-earners, they did produce a remarkable number of future professional players, notably future Halifax championship winning captain and Yorkshire county centre John Burnett, along with Gordon Leeming, Brian Vierod, Roy Pollard, David Sykes, Jack Scroby and Jimmie Lawton.

One highlight was that Pellon reached the semi-finals of the Halifax Cup in 1948.

Illingworth legend, Peter Clayton, recalls that Pellon team went unbeaten for 4 whole seasons.

At U18 level, the club reached the Halifax Cup final in 1952 but were well beaten by Ovenden.

One tragic part of their history was the death of 20-year-old winger, Wilfred Powell, towards the end of the cup semi-final replay against Ovenden. The injury caused in a tackle was reported to have aggravated a head injury suffered in the first game a few days earlier. Wilfred’s father stated that he felt “the tackle was a fair one”. Wilfred was the grandson of former Halifax forward, George Langhorn. A memorial fund was established by the Halifax and District Rugby League.

One major figure in amateur Rugby League in Halifax, Clifford Fee, who in the 1970’s was head of J.& J. Fee Builders and Contractors and who became sponsor for many years of the Halifax Cup (Fee Cup, as it was known for 40 years), was one of the young lads whose Rugby League involvement started at the Pellon club.

Senior Halifax referee Henry Mason remembers refereeing a Pellon game up on Roils Head. And not in good weather!. Pellon were based at The Horse and Jockey at Highroyd Well when it was run by John Burnett.