1979–80 League Cup (rugby league)

1979–80 League Cup
Structure	National knockout championship
Teams	32
Winners	Bradford Northern
Runners-up	Widnes
← 1978–79 Seasons 1980–81 →

This was the ninth season for the League Cup, known as the John Player Trophy for sponsorship reasons.

Bradford Northern won the trophy, beating Widnes 6-0 in the final. The match was played at Headingley, Leeds, West Yorkshire. The attendance was 9,909 and receipts were £11560.

The council of the Rugby Football League voted to introduce a new competition, to be similar to The Football Association and Scottish Football Association's "League Cup". It was to be a similar knock-out structure to, and to be secondary to, the Challenge Cup. As this was being formulated, sports sponsorship was becoming more prevalent and as a result John Player and Sons, a division of Imperial Tobacco Company, became sponsors, and the competition never became widely known as the "League Cup."

The competition ran from 1971–72 until 1995-96 and was initially intended for the professional clubs plus the two amateur BARLA National Cup finalists. In later seasons the entries were expanded to take in other amateur and French teams. The competition was dropped due to "fixture congestion" when Rugby League became a summer sport The Rugby League season always (until the onset of "Summer Rugby" in 1996) ran from around August-time through to around May-time and this competition always took place early in the season, in the Autumn, with the final usually taking place in late January.

The competition was known by its sponsorship name, as the Player's No.6 Trophy (1971–1977), the John Player Trophy (1977–1983), the John Player Special Trophy (1983–1989), and the Regal Trophy in 1989.

The 1979–80 season saw no changes in the entrants, no new members and no withdrawals, the number remaining at eighteen. There were no drawn matches in the competition.

Involved 16 matches and 32 Clubs

Involved 8 matches and 16 Clubs

Involved 4 matches with 8 clubs

Involved 2 matches and 4 Clubs

Scoring - Try = three (3) points - Goal = two (2) points - Drop goal = one (1) point

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