The 1985–86 Yorkshire Cup was the seventy-eighth occasion on which the Yorkshire Cup competition had been held. This season there were no junior/amateur clubs taking part, no "leavers", but one new entrant in the form of newcomers to the league,

Sheffield Eagles The Sheffield Eagles are a professional rugby league club that play in the Championship (rugby league), Betfred Championship. The club play their home games at the Olympic Legacy Park (OLP) on the former site of Don Valley Stadium, their forme ...

and so the total of entries increases by one up to seventeen. This in turn resulted in the necessity to introduce a preliminary round to reduce the number of clubs entering the first round to sixteen. Last year's runner-up,

Hull Kingston Rovers Hull Kingston Rovers are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England, that competes in the Super League, the top tier of British rugby league. The club has won five league championships, and one Challeng ...

returned to the finals stage to win the trophy this year by beating

Castleford Castleford is a town within the City of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It had a population of 45,106 at a 2021 population estimate. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to the north of the town centre the River Calder joins the ...

by the score of 22–18. The match was played at

Headingley Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingle ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

, now in

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

. The attendance was 12,686 and receipts were £36,327. It was the third time in the incredible eleven-year period in which

. previously only once winners in 1977, will make eight appearances in the Yorkshire Cup final, winning on four and ending as runner-up on four occasions.

Background

The

Rugby Football League The Rugby Football League is the governing body for professional rugby league in England, and until 1995 for the whole British Isles. The name Rugby Football League previously also referred to the main league competition run by the organisati ...

's Yorkshire Cup competition was a knock-out competition between (mainly professional) rugby league clubs from the county of Yorkshire. The actual area was at times increased to encompass other teams from outside the county such as

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

, and even London (in the form of Acton & Willesden). The Rugby League season always (until the onset of "Summer Rugby" in 1996) ran from around August-time through to around May-time and this competition always took place early in the season, in the Autumn, with the final taking place in (or just before) December (The only exception to this was when disruption of the fixture list was caused during, and immediately after, the two World Wars).

Competition and results

Preliminary round

Involved 1 match and 2 clubs

Round 1

Involved 8 matches (with no byes) and 16 clubs

Round 2 - Quarter-finals

Involved 4 matches and 8 clubs

Round 3 – Semi-finals

Involved 2 matches and 4 clubs

Final

Teams and scorers

Scoring - Try = four points - Goal = two points - Drop goal = one point

The road to success

Notes

1 * This is the first Yorkshire Cup match played by

, newly elected to the league 2 *

, is the home ground of Leeds RLFC with a capacity of 21,000. The record attendance was 40,175 for a league match between Leeds and Bradford Northern on 21 May 1947.

References

External links

Saints Heritage Society1896–97 Northern Rugby Football Union season at wigan.rlfans.com

Hull&Proud Fixtures & Results 1896/1897Widnes Vikings - One team, one passion Season In Review - 1896-97The Northern Union at warringtonwolves.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:1985-86 Yorkshire Cup RFL Yorkshire Cup Yorkshire Cup