1917–18 Northern Rugby Football Union Wartime Emergency League season

1917–18 Northern Rugby Football Union Wartime Emergency League season
LeagueNorthern Rugby League Wartime Emergency League
1917–18 Season
ChampionsBarrow
Runners-upDewsbury

The 1917–18 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the third season of Rugby league's Wartime Emergency League football. Each club played a differing number of fixtures, depending upon the closeness of neighbours, ease of travel etc., with Rochdale Hornets playing (and losing) only 7 games and St. Helens 18 while Wigan played 35 and several other clubs 31.

Season summary

The war was starting its fourth year and the Rugby League again continued with the Wartime Emergency League set up. This arrangement, as in other sports, meant that the sport could continue, which in turn would boost the public’s moral. The fixtures were usually quite local, thus cutting down on travelling time and costs, whilst not wasting precious war resources.

Several clubs did not participate during this season :-

Huddersfield
Oldham
Wakefield Trinity withdrew again
York withdrew
Keighley again did not take part and in fact did not re-enter the league until the first peacetime League in 1919-20.

No clubs re-joined the League and no new clubs joined the league for this season.

Barrow (90.91%) finished the regular season top of the league (40 points) although only playing 22 games, with Dewsbury (87.10%) this time in second place (with 54 points from 31 games)..
Barrow took the title for the first time in their history.[1]

There were no other trophies to play for during this season.

Championship


Team P W D L PF PA diff Pts % Note ref
1 Barrow 22 20 0 2 425 59 366 40 90.91
2 Dewsbury 31 27 0 4 480 149 331 54 87.10
3 Leeds 31 21 3 7 479 214 265 45 72.58
4 Hull 24 17 0 7 318 261 57 34 70.83
5 Broughton Rangers 29 19 3 7 345 130 215 41 70.69
6 Leigh 31 19 2 10 343 106 237 40 64.52
7 Halifax 26 16 0 10 233 181 52 32 61.54
8 St Helens Recs 29 16 3 10 270 132 138 35 60.34
9 Wigan 35 21 0 14 331 210 121 42 60.00
10 Warrington 31 16 4 11 236 210 26 36 58.06
11 Widnes 20 9 4 7 189 146 43 22 55.00
12 Swinton 22 11 1 10 156 208 -52 23 52.27
13 Batley 23 10 1 12 165 191 -26 21 45.65
14 Bradford Northern 26 10 2 14 156 260 -104 22 42.31
15 Hunslet 30 11 1 18 311 314 -3 23 38.33
16 Bramley 25 6 2 17 186 262 -76 14 28.00
17 St. Helens 18 4 2 12 94 261 -167 10 27.78
18 Brighouse Rangers 20 4 2 14 75 302 -227 10 25.00
19 Hull Kingston Rovers 25 1 1 23 125 501 -376 3 6.00
20 Salford 28 1 1 26 54 499 -445 3 5.36
21 Runcorn 19 1 0 18 51 277 -226 2 5.26
22 Rochdale Hornets 7 0 0 7 7 156 -149 0 0

Challenge Cup


The Challenge Cup Competition was suspended for the duration of the war.
The majority of the trophies, such as the County Leagues and County Cups were also suspended for the duration of the First World War.

See also

British rugby league system
1915–16 Northern Rugby Football Union Wartime Emergency League season
1916–17 Northern Rugby Football Union Wartime Emergency League season
1918–1919 (January) Northern Rugby Football Union Wartime Emergency League season
1919 (Feb-May) Northern Rugby Football Union Victory season
The Great Schism – Rugby League View
The Great Schism – Rugby Union View
List of defunct rugby league clubs

References


  1. ^ "1914–15 Season summary". Archived from the original on 2009-08-26. Retrieved 2009-08-07.