Runcorn Highfield RLFC

Liverpool Stanley
Club information
Founded	1902
Exited	1997
Former details
Ground(s)	Valerie Park, Prescot, 1994–97 Hoghton Road, St. Helens, 1991–94 Canal Street, Runcorn, 1984–91 Alt Park, Huyton, 1969–84 no ground, 1968–69 Knotty Ash Stadium, Liverpool, 1951–68 Stanley Greyhound Stadium, Liverpool, 1934–51 White City Stadium, London, 1933–34 Tunstall Lane, Wigan, unknown date until 1933

Runcorn Highfield

Club information

Full name

Exited

1997

Former details

Ground(s)

Canal Street ground (3,500 (1,800 seated))

Competition

Rugby League Division 2

Uniforms

Home colours

Liverpool Stanley was a semi-professional rugby league club from Liverpool, England. It was renamed Liverpool City in 1951, but was otherwise unrelated to the original Liverpool club of the same name. The club's origins date back to 1880 when it was founded as Wigan Highfield. Although the club was best known for its years in Liverpool, the club relocated numerous times, and were known as London Highfield, Huyton, Runcorn Highfield, Highfield, and eventually Prescot Panthers throughout their existence before being eventually wound up in 1996.

A professional club first emerged in Liverpool, called Liverpool City, in 1906, playing at the Stanley Athletics Ground. They hold an unwanted record in the professional game in the United Kingdom as being a team who lost every game in the season. In 1906–1907, they lost 30 games – they drew one against Bramley which was expunged because the return game wasn't played and also lost to Pontefract, but that result was expunged after Pontefract withdrew from the league. At the end of that season, they were replaced by two Welsh clubs, Merthyr Tydfil and Ebbw Vale.

The Liverpool City name would be resurrected by the Highfield franchise but there is no connection between the two clubs.

Highfield Rugby Football Club was formed around 1880 and went out of existence for a few years following the rugby schism of 1895. They reformed in 1902, the club originally playing in a league comprising the "A" teams of the major clubs. Although no colour photographs of the team exist, it is generally assumed that Wigan Highfield's colours were yellow and blue.

Highfield Rugby Football Club played in the Parish of Highfield, in Pemberton, a neighbouring town adjacent to Wigan. In 1921–22, the club made an application for full Rugby League status, but it was decided that their Tunstall Lane ground was not big enough. By incorporating a field, it was possible to increase the size of the ground and in the 1922–23 season the club entered the Rugby League as Wigan Highfield. Their first match was against Wigan on 2 September 1922, at Tunstall Lane, in which Wigan beat Wigan Highfield 25–10.

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