LEEDS owner Paul Caddick has revealed that being called the ‘Rhinos’ was up in the air until the night before the Rhinos’ launch back in 1997.
In 1997, Gary Hetherington and Caddick bought the Leeds rugby league team in 1997, and they co-founded Leeds Rugby Limited.
They then decided to rebrand to the Rhinos in the same year at the height of the Super League creation – but it may never have been the case had Hetherington got his way.
Hetherington, who founded Sheffield Eagles in 1984, wanted to create the moniker ‘Leeds Sharks’ with Caddick keen on ‘Leeds Rhinos’.
Caddick, of course, won the day with the Rhinos brand being established, with the inspiration for the Rhinos coming from a minibus ride with his children.
“We decided we needed a brand and Gary and I sat down and talked about it,” Caddick told The Box 2 podcast.
“We put forward a number of names, Rhinos was one of them – Gary had already done it with Sheffield Eagles.
“One day, I was going along in a minibus with my children and I’m getting them singing different songs such as ‘we’re Leeds Rhinos’.
“Gary was into Sharks and he was like ‘Shark attack, Shark attack’ and I was like ‘no, Leeds Rhinos’.
“We kept going round in circles and this back and forth was going on between me and Gary.
“I spoke to him on the Sunday night before the launch on the Monday and he said he was going with Sharks.
“I said to him ‘this is no longer a debate, it’s going to be Rhinos’ and the phone goes dead. This is the only time we’ve crossed on something.
“I wasn’t debating it, we were calling it Rhinos. It launched well really so I’ll take credit for that!
“Two years later, we get the RFL at Headingley for a luncheon. They said that the launch had gone really well.
“Gary said to them ‘you’ll never guess what Paul wanted to call us: Leeds Sharks!'”
It’s fair to say that the Rhinos took off and is one of the most famous brands in world rugby league.
