Aberdare RLFC
| Club information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Aberdare Rugby League Football Club |
| Founded | March 1908 |
| Exited | 1909 |
| Former details | |
| Ground(s) | |
| Competition |
Welsh League Northern Rugby League |
| 1908–9 season | 31st |
Aberdare Rugby League Football Club was a professional rugby league club based in Aberdare, Wales playing in the Welsh League and Northern Union. Playing from Ynys Field (later Aberdare Athletic Ground) in Aberdare, the club was one of the first professional Welsh teams, formed in 1908 but folded after just a single season.
At the beginning of the 20th century, rugby union was the sport of choice for most villages and towns. The sport was strictly amateur and players were not expected to receive any monies for taking part in the sport. If players were to be discovered taking payments, they and their club could be permanently suspended. The problem facing Welsh rugby was the rise of the professional Northern Union (later rugby league) in the North of England, where several clubs had split away from the International Rugby Board and formed their own league where players were paid to play. Many rugby union clubs found their star players poached from them by the new Northern League.
To prevent losing their star players, many rugby union clubs secretly paid their players a small amount of money for each match played. The first challenge of the professional era to face the Welsh Rugby Union came in 1907 when E.M. Rees, the ex-Secretary of Aberdare RFC, made claims in the press that his club made player payments. Rees made three claims in total, firstly that all players at his former club were receiving hidden wages, secondly that Aberdare had received a payment of £15 from rivals Treorchy to throw a crucial League match, and finally that Merthyr Alexandria had demanded a payment of £7 5s to bring his team to play Aberdare. The most notable player caught up in these allegations was Dai "Tarw" Jones, an internationally capped player for Wales and hero of the 1905 encounter with New Zealand. Jones was originally a player for Treherbert, but had switched to Aberdare, and he and his fellow players were being paid 10s a match. When Aberdare came into financial problems, they cut the illegal payments to 5s, and Jones promptly switched back to Treherbert.
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