Our time machine travels back to March 1953 when rugby league crowds were booming all over.
MANY of us will have seen a grainy photograph or two of the legendary Wednesday evening in May 1954 when Odsal recorded an attendance of 102,569 for the Challenge Cup Final replay in which Warrington beat Halifax 8-4.
While bettered by the Aussies in 1999, when Sydneysiders flocked to a couple of big NRL occasions at Homebush Stadium, newly opened in readiness for the following year’s Olympics, it remains a record crowd for a rugby league match staged in this country.
But less well documented is another British best for the game which can be boasted by the Bradford venue which was back in the news earlier this year when the Bulls bought back the stadium lease from the RFL.
For 14 months before the historic six-figure turn-out, a bumper gate of 69,429 showed up on 14th March, 1953 for the Challenge Cup quarter-final derby between Bradford (then Northern) and Huddersfield – still the biggest crowd for a match not played on a neutral ground.
In an era when most weekend sports contests took place concurrently, Odsal provided the highest attendance for any code of football in England and Wales that Saturday afternoon (while it topped the 50,000 at St Helen’s, Swansea, for Wales’ 5-3 win over Ireland in the then-Five Nations, north of the border, 95,000 witnessed Rangers’ 2-0 victory over Celtic in a Scottish Cup quarter-final showdown at Ibrox Park, Glasgow).
It’s testament to the pulling power of rugby league – in particular knockout encounters – in the austere years soon after the Second World War when forms of entertainment were far fewer than today, that the four Challenge Cup quarter-final ties attracted more than 147,000 in total.
There were 32,051 at Leigh, where St Helens won 12-3, 25,423 at Warrington, where Leeds were defeated 25-8, and 20,455 at Wigan, where the home side saw off Hull KR 25-6.
Even more remarkable was that Bradford hosted two competing sports events, both of which drew decent crowds.
At the old Lidgett Green ground of Bradford Rugby Union Club (who were to merge with Bingley in 1982), around 9,000 watched Roundhay and England lock Dennis ‘Squire’ Wilkins lead Yorkshire to an 11-3 triumph over East Midlands in the County Championship Final.
Meanwhile in football’s Third Division North, 6,000 saw Bradford Park Avenue drew 1-1 with Hartlepools United (as a point of interest, the ‘s’ was in place between that club’s formation in 1908 and 1968, when the neighbouring towns of West Hartlepool and Hartlepool merged to form a single borough).
But 13-a-side was the big draw, with both Bradford, who had topped the table the previous season but lost 13-6 to Wigan in the Championship Final, and Huddersfield going well in the league and the latter having won that season’s Yorkshire Cup by beating Batley 18-8 at Headingley, Leeds.
Both teams boasted big-name players from both these shores and overseas, with Bradford, bossed by former Halifax backrow Dai Rees, bolstered by a clutch of Kiwi backs in Joe Phillips, Bob Hawes, Norman Hastings and Jack McLean, and Welshman Trevor Foster and Ken Traill stars of their pack.
Huddersfield player-coach, centre Russ Pepperell, had ace Australian flair players in Johnny Hunter, Lionel Cooper and Pat Devery as well as Peter Henderson, like Bradford’s McLean, a former All Blacks winger.
Also clad in claret and gold was the powerful former Scotland rugby union forward Dave Valentine.
Less than a year before, 56,476 had been at Odsal to see Bradford edge out Huddersfield 18-15 in the play-off semi-finals, and now Challenge Cup fever was gripping both sets of supporters.
And this time it was the visiting contingent who were celebrating as their side shrugged off the absence of Henderson to clinch a 17-7 win.
Winger Dick Cracknell crossed twice and Welsh scrum-half Billy Banks once (three points per try at that time), while Devery kicked three goals and Banks one, Bradford’s points coming from a McLean touchdown and two Phillips goals.
But for once the Fartowners’ forwards, with ex-Wigan Ted Slevin the stand-out, took the main plaudits.
“Huddersfield have been living for the day when they could sit back and say of an important match ‘our pack have won us the game’,” reported the Daily Herald.
“No one gave them much of a chance when they went off a point down at half-time, but their forwards, marshalled by crafty (George) Curran, lifted by Valentine’s bursts, and inspired by the outstanding brilliance of Slevin, broke Bradford.”
Huddersfield returned to Odsal in the semi-finals, and 58,722 were there for the 7-0 win over Wigan, with a gate of 38,059 at Station Road, Swinton, where St Helens beat Warrington 9-3.
With 89,588 at Wembley, the Yorkshire side lifted the trophy, teenage stand-off Peter Ramsden (two) and Banks scoring tries and Cooper (two) and Devery landing goals in the 15-10 success.
But at Knowsley Road seven days later, 30,864 saw St Helens take revenge with a 46-0 win in the play-off semi-finals, en route to a title-clinching 24-14 victory over Halifax in the Championship Final at Maine Road, Manchester, seen by 51,083.
Seven years later, Odsal accommodated 83,190 to watch Wigan defeat Wakefield Trinity 27-3 in the 1960 Championship Final.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 506 (March 2025)
