Featherstone still knocking on the door 40 years on from their unlikely Wembley triumph

Forty years ago, rugby league supporters were gripped by the news that a brand new expansionist club was going to shake up the English game.

After the initial success of league in the south through Fulham in London, expectations were high for Kent Invicta as they launched a new club in Maidstone. 

In a Britain that was increasingly divided between rich and poor, Maidstone was sold to the public as the ‘ideal rugby league town for the 1980s’. With good facilities, bars and restaurants at the ground, organisers reassured club chairmen that there was a lucrative market for the game.

As one hugely supportive article in the Rugby Leaguer argued, Kent was an ‘affluent catchment area where unemployment is less than 8%’. The potential was ‘tremendous’ from the ‘commercial development aspect’.

Targeting expansion as heartlands clubs struggled

Kent arrived at the perfect time as the game was looking to bring new money into it. As the impact of the recession and unemployment hit harder, a debate emerged about how the rugby league could create more ‘glamour clubs’ at the expense of those that were dubbed the ‘’shoestring operators’.

One of the clubs that was particularly struggling financially was Featherstone Rovers. 

Run through the goodwill of supporters, local businesses, fundraisers, committees and the ability to generate transfer fees for young talent, Featherstone prided itself on its ability to overachieve with limited resources.

Often described as a ‘set of traffic lights on the road from Wakefield to Pontefract’, the club prided itself on its link with the local community. In 1983 the club remained built upon a team of miners who were renowned for their physicality. Players would even  come to training covered in coal dust from the morning shift. 

Like most areas in the rugby league heartlands, the early 1980s had been a struggle. To try and compete with giants Hull, Wigan and Widnes, the club calculated that it needed another 15000 people to come through the turnstiles each week.  They needed locals to buy lottery tickets, sponsor players and organise the day-to-day running of the club. 

In one appeal, the club secretary urged supporters to stop drinking in the local pubs and use the clubhouse instead: ‘Have a drink at the Social Club, buy a lottery ticket, for unless we get more support for Rovers, I cannot see a future for them’.

Cup glory against the odds

In the early 1980s, people looked towards areas such as Kent and Fulham to drive expansion at the expense of the traditional mining towns. But whenever it looked like Featherstone was in trouble, their players could be relied upon to fight against the odds and deliver something spectacular. And in 1983, the team went on a shock cup run that took them all the way to Wembley again. 

Having begun the season as 100/1 outsiders for the Challenge Cup, Rovers went on a miraculous run that saw them defeat Batley, Salford, St Helens and Bradford on the road to Wembley. In a sport that was increasingly divided between the ‘glamour’ clubs and the ‘shoestring operators’, their opponents Hull were seen as the most ‘aspirational’ club in the country. Hull, packed with the talents of David Topliss, James Leuluai and Gary Kemble, were the competition’s holders and had finished top of the regular season table. 

When the Rugby Leaguer asked nine of the game’s top coaches for their predictions, only one of them was brave enough to tip Rovers. The pre-match programme talked about the match being a “David and Goliath” clash and urged neutrals to join Rovers fans at the tunnel end of Wembley.  “Featherstone Rovers will have to overcome frightening odds for such a modestly assembled side” admitted Brian Batty of the Daily Mail. This was the pit village side against the games “aristocrats” who had been “built on their galaxy of British and New Zealand stars”.⁠

Featherstone was gripped by Wembley fever in the run-up to the game. When the BBC arrived to film a pre-match feature for their coverage, journalists were drawn into its unique culture. ‘Featherstone is an isolated mining community with two fixations: rugby league and coal’ said the presenter, Richard Duckenfield. The press reported that the only person who probably wouldn’t make it down to Wembley was the signalman at the main line level crossing in the middle of the town. 

Businesses, hammered by the recession, reported record sales of any merchandise that had blue on it. And over 80 minutes at Wembley, Featherstone shocked the rugby league world. Four goals from Steve Quinn and two tries from Lance Todd Trophy winner David Hobbs were enough to edge a 14-12 thriller. ‘The little mining town from the West Riding of Yorkshire have beaten the might of Humberside’ was how Ray French immortalised it in his commentary afterwards. 

The victory was seen as a shot in the arm for the traditional clubs who increasingly felt detached from the commercialisation of the game.  When David Hobbs was interviewed by journalists in the wake of his Lance Todd trophy win, he talked about how everyone had written them off. ‘I think we gave a good advertisement for rugby league but more important is the fact this has put us back on the map’. The following Monday the players took the Challenge Cup to the colliery where many of them worked each day. In the aftermath, local politicians talked about it being the economic boost that the town needed.

Changes for the country and changes for rugby league

Nobody knew it at the time, but the 1983 Challenge Cup final would mark the end of an era for Featherstone. As I outline in my upcoming book, Rugby League in Thatcher’s Britain, the celebrations soon turned to a battle for survival, not just for the rugby league club but for the player’s families.

Just weeks after the victory, the country went to the polls at the general election. The landslide that Margaret Thatcher won set her on course for a battle with the coal industry that would radically change the social, economic and industrial life of Britain. 

Rugby league would change dramatically too. 1983 was the year that the Australians arrived following the lifting of the overseas ban, while young British players such as Shaun Edwards and Garry Schofield emerged as the professional athletes that would take the game into the 1990s. Never again would a team win a Challenge Cup with a side consisting of just English players, many of whom lived and worked in the town that they played for.

In the 40 years that have passed, the debate about the ‘glamour’ and the ‘shoestring’ clubs has continued. At various points, momentum has shifted to the Kent Invictas, London Broncos, Gateshead Thunders and Toronto Wolfpacks of the world at the expense of the traditional clubs in the game heartlands. In 1995, Featherstone were part of an ambitious plan to create a new team, Calder, with Castleford and Wakefield. But a campaign of resistance by supporters ensured that it was never likely to happen. 

Now, in 2023, the arrival of IMG again threatens to shift the goalposts away from Featherstone, just as they look on course for promotion to Super League.

But as the club that has continually adapted to social, economic and industrial change to keep rugby league going at Post Office Road,  you wouldn’t bet against them confounding the doubters again. 

Anthony Broxton’s book Hope and Glory: Rugby League in Thatcher’s Britain will be published later this year and is available to pre-order now.