The 1988–89
John Player Special Trophy was the eighteenth season for the competition (named as such due to sponsorship from
John Player & Sons
John Player & Sons, most often known simply as Player's, was a tobacco and cigarette manufacturer based in Nottingham, England. In 1901, the company merged with other companies to form The Imperial Tobacco Company to face competition from US ma ...
).
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas, Lancashire, River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. Bolton lies to the nor ...
won the final, beating
Widnes
Widnes ( ) is an Industrial city, industrial town in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England, which at the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 census had a population of 61,464.
Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, it is on t ...
by the score of 12-6. The match was played at
Burnden Park
Burnden Park was the home of English football club Bolton Wanderers who played home games there between 1895 and 1997. As well as hosting the 1901 FA Cup Final replay, it was the scene in 1946 of one of the greatest disasters in English footba ...
,
Bolton
Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...
,
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...
. The attendance was 20,709 and receipts were £94874.
Background
This season saw no changes in the entrants, no new members and no withdrawals, the number remaining at thirty-six
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...
dropped the "Barracuda" suffix and the ground reverted to the traditional
Fartown name, much to the relief of most of the fans - and -
Springfield Borough moved to Chorley after only one season and re-branded themselves
Chorley Borough, playing at
Victory Park, the home of Chorley FC
Competition and results
Preliminary round
Involved 4 matches and 8 Clubs
Round 1 - First Round
[
Involved 16 matches and 32 Clubs
]
Round 2 - Second Round
Involved 8 matches and 16 Clubs
Round 3 -Quarter Finals
Involved 4 matches with 8 clubs
Round 3 -Quarter Finals - Replays
Involved 1 match with 2 clubs
Round 4 – Semi-Finals
Involved 2 matches and 4 Clubs
Final
Teams and scorers
Scoring - Try = four points - Goal = two points - Drop goal = one point
Timeline in the final
Prize money
As part of the sponsorship deal and funds, the prize money awarded to the competing teams for this season is as follows :-
Note - the author is unable to trace the award amounts for this season. Can anyone help ?
The road to success
This tree excludes any preliminary round fixtures
Notes and comments
1 * Wigan St Patricks are a Junior (amateur) club from Wigan
2 * Elland are a Junior (amateur) club from the Halifax area of Yorkshire
3 * Runcorn Highfield forfeited home advantage for a larger gate. Runcorn Players were also in dispute and the club fielded a very reduced strength team comprised a number of trialists and reserves (and coach Bill Ashurst, (an ex Wigan player) who came out of retirement especially to play, and was disappointedly sent off 12 minutes after coming off the subs bench)
4 * A Wigan record victory in this tournament
5 * The highest score, highest score by home team and highest winning margin in the competition, between all clubs to date
6 * RUGBYLEAGUEproject[ and Widnes official archives][ give the score as 37-12 but Wigan official archives][ gives it as 37-2 ]
7 * Burnden Park
Burnden Park was the home of English football club Bolton Wanderers who played home games there between 1895 and 1997. As well as hosting the 1901 FA Cup Final replay, it was the scene in 1946 of one of the greatest disasters in English footba ...
was the home of English football club Bolton Wanderers
Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...
from 1895 to 1997. It hosted the 1900-01 FA Cup Final replay in which Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...
beat Sheffield United
Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...
3.1. The record attendance was for a 6th round F A Cup match with Stoke City
Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...
(Stanley Matthews
Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE (1 February 1915 – 23 February 2000) was an English footballer who played as an outside right. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of the British game, he is the only player to have been knighted while stil ...
played for Stoke at the time) at which, although the ground capacity was set at 70,000, an estimated 85,000 fans crowded in, and when two crush barriers broke, the result was 33 fans killed and another 400 injured. The capacity at closure was a mere 25,000
General information for those unfamiliar
The council of 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 ...
voted to introduce a new competition, to be similar to The Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the Sports governing body, governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the ...
and Scottish Football Association
The Scottish Football Association (also known as the SFA and the Scottish FA; sco, Scots Fitba Association; Scottish Gaelic: ''Comann Ball-coise na h-Alba'') is the Sport governing body, governing body of association football, football in Scot ...
's "League Cup". It was to be a similar knock-out structure to, and to be secondary to, the Challenge Cup. As this was being formulated, sports sponsorship was becoming more prevalent and as a result John Player and Sons, a division of Imperial Tobacco Company, became sponsors, and the competition never became widely known as the "League Cup"
The competition ran from 1971-72 until 1995-96 and was initially intended for the professional clubs plus the two amateur BARLA
The British Amateur Rugby League Association (BARLA) is an association for social and recreational rugby league. It works jointly with the Rugby Football League through the RFL Community Board.
History
BARLA was created in 1973 in Huddersfiel ...
National Cup finalists. In later seasons the entries were expanded to take in other amateur and French teams. The competition was dropped due to "fixture congestion" when Rugby League became a summer sport
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 usually taking place in late January
The competition was variably known, by its sponsorship name, as the Player's No.6 Trophy (1971–1977), the John Player Trophy (1977–1983), the John Player Special Trophy (1983–1989), and the Regal Trophy in 1989.
See also
*1988–89 Rugby Football League season
The 1988–89 Rugby Football League season was the 94th season of professional rugby league football in Britain. Fourteen teams competed from August, 1988 until May, 1989 for the Stones Bitter Championship, Premiership Trophy and Silk Cut Chall ...
*1988 Lancashire Cup
File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...
* 1988 Yorkshire Cup
* John Player Special Trophy
*Rugby league county cups
Historically, English rugby league clubs competed for the Lancashire Cup and the Yorkshire Cup, known collectively as the county cups. The leading rugby clubs in Yorkshire had played in a cup competition (affectionately known as ''t’owd tin pot ...
References
External links
Saints Heritage Society
1896–97 Northern Rugby Football Union season at wigan.rlfans.com
Hull&Proud Fixtures & Results 1896/1897
Widnes Vikings - One team, one passion Season In Review - 1896-97
The Northern Union at warringtonwolves.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:1988-89 John Player Special Trophy
1988 in English rugby league
1989 in English rugby league
League Cup (rugby league)