The local league had struggled at open-age level for many years, so immediately looked to expand beyond their own boundaries when it came to organising rugby for the post-war 1945-6 season. Kitchen & Wade’s retained their team, but there was to be no immediate return yet for Siddal, Ovenden, Greetland ...

New in season 1951-2 were Triangle, whose ground was actually up the hill in Norland at Longley Flatts, near what later became the Halifax Children’s Holiday Home, though after a couple of seasons it is the Norland name rather than Triangle that appears in the league tables. A team called King Cross appeared ...

Whilst amateur rugby league appeared on the surface to be operating successfully in the 1950s, Halifax was never really a big enough town to sustain its own local league. Clubs from other towns had helped keep up numbers, while Halifax teams had also themselves joined other leagues to supplement fixtures ...

Big changes were afoot by 1974. Many amateur clubs were unhappy with the way the game was being handled by its rulers the Rugby Football League, especially boss Bill Fallowfield. And it was a locally-connnected group who took action to do something about it. Maurice Oldroyd, Bob Keaveney and Jack ...

Locally, the optimism led to the formation of a host of new clubs in the early years of the Pennine League. Mixenden were the first. The earlier team, once on a field up on the tops above the Stone Chair out towards Mount Tabor, had folded, but a resurrected side started ...

Amateur Rugby League had featured County-wide competitions before, but had traditionally been based on local town leagues. BARLA had helped expand that with its regional leagues – the Yorkshire League, Pennine League and North-West Counties leagues among them. In 1986 BARLA went a step further when it launched a long-awaited ...

Local teams have regularly featured in the Challenge Cup over the years, particularly National Conference teams whose qualification route is simpler. Siddal, Ovenden, Elland and Illingworth all progressed far enough to meet semi-professional opposition, Siddal taking pride of place in that they beat two of them. In 2010 they thrashed ...

In 2003/2004 amateur rugby league came back under the Rugby Football League umbrella. From then BARLA worked jointly with them through the RFL’s Community Board, and officials began speaking of the community game rather than the amateur game. There were still new teams joining, though not as many as before ...

A push from the RFL for the amateur game to switch to a summer season to come into line with the professional game, which had made the change in 1996, was to have many repercussions. The advantages of training in the summer, especially for youngsters, were stressed, and though many ...

Nowadays, amateur or community rugby league, like most other team sports, is in decline once more, with clubs being lost. The biggest casualty locally has been Ovenden. Situated in a Rugby League stronghold, they had lots going for them – a regular pitch in its best state, a clubhouse, Jake ...