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1918–19 (January) Northern Rugby Football Union Wartime Emergency League season

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1918–1919 (January) Northern Rugby Football Union Wartime Emergency League season
LeagueNorthern Rugby League Wartime Emergency League
1918–19 (Jan) Season
ChampionsNo table produced
Runners-upNo table produced

The 1918–19 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the fourth season of Rugby league's Wartime Emergency League football. Each club again played a differing number of fixtures, depending upon the closeness of neighbours, ease of travel etc.. The season tapered off towards the end when the 1919 (Feb-May) "Victory" League was hurriedly introduced.

Season summary

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The war was starting its fifth year and the Rugby League again started the season by continuing 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 continued last season's absence from the competition
Oldham continued last season's absence from the competition
Wakefield Trinity continued last season's absence from the competition
York continued last season's absence from the competition
Keighley again did not take part and in fact did not re-enter the league until the first peacetime League in 1919-20.
Widnes once again withdrew
There are no records of Runcorn taking part.

No clubs re-joined the League and no new clubs joined the league for this season.
Although it is known that St Helens Recs did play some matches during the season, it is not clear whether these were just friendlies or whether part of the league programme.

The armistice was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918, signifying an end to the Great War. This in turn meant a slight relaxation of the emergency rules on sport and leisure introduced by the British Government during the war. The Northern Union decided to organise a new "Victory" League" starting in February 1919. This in turn meant that the 1918–19 League programme seemed to peter out and was never finished. Consequently no table was ever produced for the "partial" season.
Note - Nowhere in the official archives is the word "Victory" used. It has been used in this article to distinguish between the two competitions held in the 1918–19 season.

There is very little information available for this partial season, although Wigan played 13 matches and Hull F.C. 12 matches.
The table below gives the teams competing in alphabetical order, only Wigan and Hull F.C. results are complete.[1]

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

Championship

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Team P W D L PF PA diff Pts % Note ref
Barrow
Batley
Bradford Northern
Bramley
Brighouse Rangers
Broughton Rangers
Dewsbury
Halifax
Hull 12 5 0 7 128 143 -15 10 42.86
Hull Kingston Rovers
Hunslet
Leeds 16 12 1 3 243 68 +175 25 78.13
Leigh
Rochdale Hornets
Runcorn
Salford
St. Helens
St Helens Recs 1
Swinton
Warrington
Wigan 14 9 0 5 104 54 50 18 64.29

Challenge Cup

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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.

Notes and Comments

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1 - It is uncertain as to whether the matches played by St Helens Recs were friendlies or went towards the league programme

See also

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References

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