Runcorn RFC
| Club information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Runcorn RFC |
| Nickname(s) | unknown |
| Founded | some time before 1876 |
| Exited | 1917 or 1918 |
| Former details | |
| Ground(s) | |
Runcorn RFC was a (semi) professional rugby league club. They joined the Northern Union in 1895, just several days after it was founded and played in the league system from season 1895–96 to season 1917–18 inclusive.
The club was based in Runcorn (population approximately 62,000 in 2010), an industrial town and cargo port within the borough of Halton in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The town is situated on the southern bank of the River Mersey opposite Widnes
Very little is known of the club in the early days.
in the Summer of 1885 the club carried out a tour of South Wales
However In 1886, Runcorn played Warrington in the semi-final of the South West Lancashire and Border Towns Trophy. A fight between players on the pitch resulted in a player from each side being sent off. Some time later during the match, a Runcorn player was injured and when the referee refused to allow this injured player to be replaced by the previously sent off player, the Runcorn team walked off the field.
At this point the referee abandoned the match.
The Cup competition committee decided that the match should be replayed. Warrington duly won this match at Southport. It was 1891 before the animosity between the clubs subsided sufficiently for them to recommence playing each other.
In March 1889 Runcorn, at the time Cheshire champions, played the touring New Zealand Maoris team before a crowd of about 9,000 at Canal Street. Runcorn were led at the time by regular captain Hughie Hughes.
Leading up to the “Great Schism “, twelve of the top Yorkshire clubs held a meeting on Tuesday, 20 August 1895, at the Mitre Hotel, Leeds, at which they agreed that they should meet with the Rugby Union to put forward the idea of forming a Northern Union, not as a complete breakaway, but a suggestion which the Union immediately rejected out of hand.
On 27 August 1895 an emergency meeting of nine Lancashire clubs agreed to support their Yorkshire counterparts if they decided to break away. Runcorn was not among the nine.
Two days later on the 29 August, the representatives of these 21 clubs (by this time, had joined the others, but their representative, being unable to attend, had telegraphed the meeting requesting his club’s admission to the new organisation) met in The George Hotel, Huddersfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire, a setting which was to become famous (or infamous) in the world of rugby. And all but Dewsbury agreed to the break-away.
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