1980–81 League Cup (rugby league)

1980–81 League Cup
Structure	National knockout championship
Teams	32
Winners	Warrington
Runners-up	Barrow
← 1979–80 Seasons 1981–82 →

This was the tenth season for rugby league's League Cup competition. It was again known as the John Player Trophy for sponsorship purposes.

Warrington won the final, beating Barrow by the score of 12-5 at Central Park, Wigan in front of a crowd of 12,802. The gate receipts were £21020.

This season saw only one change in the entrants, with the admittance of Fulham to the league and to this competition, resulted in only one junior club being invited, the total number remaining at thirty-two.

Involved 16 matches and 32 Clubs

Involved 8 matches and 16 Clubs

Involved 4 matches with 8 clubs

Involved 2 matches and 4 Clubs

Involved 1 match and 2 Clubs

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

As part of the sponsorship deal and funds, the prize money awarded to the competing teams for this season is as follows :-

Note - the author is unable to trace the award amounts for this season. Can anyone help ?

This tree excludes any preliminary round fixtures

1 * Pilkington Recs are a Junior (amateur) club from St Helens, home ground was City Road until they moved to Ruskin Drive from 2011-12
2 * Wigan official archives gives the score as 15-34 but RUGBYLEAGUEproject gives it as 16-34
3 * RUGBYLEAGUEproject gives the attendance as 3,571, the same as the previously listed match (which was Widnes v Huddersfield in round 2), but the Widnes official website omits to give the attendance for this match, one of only a few matches for that season without an attendance noted
4 * Wigan official archives give the score as 13-10 but RUGBYLEAGUEproject gives it as 13-15. As Barrow progressed into the semi-final, the score given in the Wigan archives was obviously in error
5 * RUGBYLEAGUEproject gives the attendance as 12,820 but Rothman's Yearbooks 1990-91 and 1992-93 give it as 12,802
6 * The attendance was a record for the final of this tournament (but would be broken next season)
7 * Central Park was the home ground of Wigan with a final capacity of 18,000, although the record attendance was 47,747 for Wigan v St Helens 27 March 1959

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 variably 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.

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