Wakefield Trinity Wildcats
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats [1] are an English rugby league club based in the town of Wakefield, West Yorkshire. They are current members of the professional top-flight European competition, the Engage Super League.[2]
Contents
History
The club was founded in 1873 when a group of young men from the Holy Trinity Church formed the Wakefield Trinity club. Although there were some other clubs in the town during the 1870s & 1880s, the Trinity became preeminent. Early matches were played on three different sites until the club moved to Belle Vue in 1879. Belle Vue was purchased in 1895 with money provided by the Wakefield Athletic Club. This was to secure a permanent base for the club and the ground was also initially used for cycling and athletics events.
In 1895 Wakefield joined the twenty-one other clubs in the breakaway Northern Rugby Football Union following a meeting of clubs at The George Hotel, Huddersfield. Although full-time professionalism was illegal players were now allowed broken time payments of up to a maximum of six shillings per day for loss of earnings through playing rugby and reducing the number of players from fifteen to thirteen. Some other changes were made in an attempt to make the game more interesting for spectators but the use of a round ball was eventually dropped after some trial games.
Trinity won the Northern Union Challenge Cup for the first time in 1909. This was followed by successes in the Yorkshire Cup (1911) and the Yorkshire League (1909-10 & 1910-11). However, apart from a solitary Yorkshire Cup win in 1925, further success was to elude them until after World War II, as they lost four Yorkshire Cup finals during the 1930s. The first post-war Wembley final marked a change in fortune as Trinity beat Wigan 13-12 in a closely fought contest and they went on to win the Yorkshire Cup twice over the next two season.
The club had to settle for two Yorkshire Cup and two Yorkshire League victories in the 1950s but returned to Wembley in 1960 when they trounced Hull 38-5. The 1960s were a golden period for the club with three Challenge Cup wins, three Yorkshire Cups and three Yorkshire League titles the space of six years. However it wasn't until 1967 that they secured the prized Championship title for the first time, and then repeated the feat the following year.
For the next thirty years Wakefield fortunes were mixed and they alternated between the top two divisions without securing any silverware and just failed to qualify for the Super League when it was inaugurated in 1996. However they won the inaugural Division One Grand Final in 1998 and when they were promoted to Super League they changed their name to Wakefield Trinity Wildcats.
They are known to their fans as 'Wakey', 'Trinity' or 'Wildcats' but were formerly known as the Dreadnoughts. The club's current home strip is a white shirt with red, blue and white bands around the shoulders, blue shorts and white socks. The club still play at the Belle Vue ground, their home for 128 years.
Honors[3]
Super League[4]
- Best position 6th (2004)
National Championship Winners
- 1966-67
- 1967-68
Challenge Cup Winners
- 1908-09
- 1945-46
- 1959-60
- 1961-62
- 1962-63
Yorkshire Cup Winners
- 1910-11
- 1924-25
- 1946-47
- 1947-48
- 1951-52
- 1956-57
- 1960-61
- 1961-62
- 1964-65
- 1992-93
Yorkshire League Winners
- 1909-10
- 1910-11
- 1945-46
- 1958-59
- 1959-60
- 1961-62
- 1962-63
Notes & references
See also
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