1940–41 Northern Rugby Football League Wartime Emergency League season

1940–41 Northern Rugby Football League Wartime Emergency League season
League	Northern Rugby League Wartime Emergency League
1940–41 Season
Lancashire League Champions	Wigan
Yorkshire League Champions	Bradford Northern
← 1939–40 Seasons 1941–42 →

The 1940–41 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the second season of the rugby league’s Wartime Emergency League necessitated by the Second World War.
In this second Wartime season, the clubs each played a different number of games and several clubs dropped out.

The 1939–40 season began on Saturday 7 September 1940, less than three months after the fall of France and the other Western Allies, and the Dunkirk evacuations.

The Northern Rugby League decided to continue with a similar format of the two regional (Lancashire and Yorkshire), Wartime Emergency Leagues, with the winner of each league meeting in a play-off final to decide the overall winner.

In the Yorkshire League Bradford Northern finished the regular season on top of the league (47 points from 25 games), clear leaders by 7 points, even after playing a game less than second place Hull F.C. (40 points from 26 games) and seventeen points clear of 3rd place Huddersfield (30 points from 25 games).

Meanwhile in the depleted Lancashire League Wigan (a magnificent 31 points from 16 matches) beat second placed Warrington by 5 points.

Bradford Northern went on to defeat Wigan 45–15 (on aggregate) in the two legged play-off final. and win the Championship (for the second consecutive season)

The Wartime Emergency Leagues did not count as an official league championship.

In the Final of the Challenge Cup, Leeds beat Halifax at Odsal by 15–10 before a crowd of 15,250.

The Lancashire County Cup, was suspended for the rest of the war and so Wigan competed in the Yorkshire Cup.

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