All Four Cups
Between 1905 and 1970 there were four trophies available to any
British rugby league side:
* Challenge Cup
* Rugby League Championship
* County league
* County cup
To win "All Four Cups" in a single season was long regarded as the
holy grail for a team. The feat was achieved on three occasions.
Encyclopedia
Between 1905 and 1970 there were four trophies available to any
British rugby league side:
- Challenge Cup
- Rugby League Championship
- County league
- County cup
To win
"All Four Cups" in a single season was long regarded as the
holy grail for a team. The feat was achieved on three occasions.
Hunslet
The first club to win All Four Cups was
Hunslet, which they did in the 1907-08 season. They were captained by Albert Goldthorpe, who operated in the back line. Hunslet’s forward pack of that season was equally famous, going by the name of "
The Terrible Six".
Hunslet did not the top the championship table at the end of the season, coming behind
Oldham, whom they defeated 10-12 in a championship replay after the first match was drawn 7 apiece. They ran out 14-0 winners in the Challenge Cup Final in front of 18,000 spectators at Fartown,
Huddersfield. They took the Yorkshire Cup by virtue of a 17-0 victory over
Halifax.
Huddersfield
The feat was next repeated by
Huddersfield in the 1914-15 season by the Fartowners famous "
Team of all the Talents". This was the culmination of a staggering period of dominance in the game, as they had already picked up two championships, the challenge cup, three Yorkshire Cups and three Yorkshire league titles in the preceding five seasons.
They were captained Harold Wagstaff, immortalised as the "
Prince of Centres", and included many foreign international. In many ways Huddersfield went one better than Hunslett six years previously in that they also topped the championship table . They easily defeated
Leeds 35-2 in the Championship final, and managed an even greater margin of victory in the Challenge Cup, crushing
St Helens 37-3 at
Oldham.
The season saw Huddersfield's wing-three-quarter Albert Rosenfeld score an impressive 56 tries. However this figure paled into insignificant when it is remembered that Rosenfeld, a
Jewish Australian who had come over to Britain with the 1908
Kangaroos, had scored 80 tries the previous season. This record has never yet been beaten.
The team of all the Talents could well have gone on to even greater exploits, however sadly the
First World War intervened, and the team broke up. The Huddersfield club was unable to field a team, reforming only after the war ended.
Swinton
The final team to win All Four Cups was
Swinton, who thus became the only side ever to achieve a
Lancashire version of the feat. The 1927-28 saw the lions sweep all before them, under the captaincy of centre Hector Halsall. They topped both the league and the Lancashire League, having already defeated Wigan in the Lancashire Cup. In a tense Challenge Cup final they squeezed past
Warrington 5-3, and three weeks later the Holy Grail was achieved when they comfortably eased past
Featherstone Rovers 11-0 to take the Championship.
Modern Developments
The county leagues were abolished in 1970, and the county cups followed in 1993. New competitions have replaced them, and at times there have been up to six cups. The only team to win all the silverware on offer since Swinton was
Wigan, who achieved a four cup triumph in 1994-95. They won the championship, beat
Leeds 69-24 in the Premiership final, defeated Leeds again 30-10 in the Challenge Cup final and overcame Warrington 40-10 in the Regal Trophy final.
Bradford Bulls won the 2002-03 Challenge Cup final 22-20 against
Leeds Rhinos, were the Super League leaders in 2003, won the 2003 Championship 25-12 against
Wigan Warriors and beat
Penrith Panthers 22-4 in February 2004 for the
World Club Challenge. They thus held all four 'modern' cups at once, though they were not from the same season, strictly speaking.
There are currently four trophies available to the top clubs:
See also
- Challenge Cup
- Rugby League Championship
- Super League
- Rugby league county leagues
- Rugby league county cups
- Rugby League Premiership
- Regal Trophy
- World Club Challenge
