The Northern Rugby Football Union. The Birth of Rugby League. 1895 to 1922

On Thursday 29th August 1895, 21 of the leading rugby union clubs of Lancashire and Yorkshire met at the George Hotel in Huddersfield to discuss their long running disagreement with the rugby football union. Little did they know what was to follow. The clubs decided that they had suffered enough of the control of the southern gentry and formed their own northern rugby football union and split from the rugby football union. It was the beginning of a dispute that would continue for almost a hundred years. The new northern union thrived, and many clubs soon joined, however, with little coherent strategy or assistance from the union, many folded within a few years. The stronger clubs and the union itself survived those initial chaotic times and continued to create the structure and competitions that have evolved to create the game of rugby league football we know today. This new book illustrates the birth of the northern union in 1895 to the 1922 name change to the rugby league with hundreds of rare images of the early teams and individuals who had the courage to take that enormous leap in the dark.