Thrum Hall was a

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

stadium on Hanson Lane in

Halifax, West Yorkshire Halifax () is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It is the commercial, cultural and administrative centre of the borough, and the headquarters of Calderdale Council. In the 15th cen ...

, England. It was the home of Halifax for 112 years. The site on which the ground stood is now occupied by a supermarket.

History

In 1878, Halifax, who had just won the inaugural Yorkshire Cup, bought a patch of land for £3,000 from a local farmer, Major Dyson, to develop as a new multi-purpose sports ground. It was to be a replacement for their Hanson Lane ground which stood opposite. The site measured 55,000 square yards and included a cricket pitch and bowling greens. The rugby stadium was opened on 18 September 1886 by Alderman Riley, who kicked off before the Halifax v

Hull F.C. Hull Football Club, commonly referred to as Hull or Hull F.C., is a professional rugby league football club established in 1865 and based in West Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The club plays in the Super League competition and were ...

match. Forward Ernest Williamson scored the first try (his only try for Halifax) and the home side went on to win in front of a crowd of around 8,000. As Thrum Hall was built on an old hilltop farm, it had a distinctive slope of 4 yards away from the main grandstand touchline. The ground was continuously developed over the next 40 to 50 years and it came to be regularly used as a neutral ground for

Challenge Cup The Challenge Cup is a knockout rugby league cup competition organised by the Rugby Football League, held annually since 1896, with the exception of 1915–1919 and 1939–1940, due to World War I and World War II respectively. It involves am ...

and

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

matches, including the 1914 Challenge Cup final (won by Hull) and the 1912, 1929 and 1930 Championship deciders. Thrum Hall was run by trustees from 1921. The attendance record of 29,153 was set in a third round

tie against

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 ...

on 21 March 1959. By the time of the

Taylor Report The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster Inquiry report is the report of an inquiry which was overseen by Lord Justice Taylor, into the causes of the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989, as a result of which, ...

, Thrum Hall's capacity was reduced to 9,832. Asda, Thrum Hall, seen from Wainhouse Tower - geograph

Halifax was hit hard by the financial situation of the late 1960s, and 1970s. In 1970, a concert was held at Thrum Hall in an attempt to alleviate these financial troubles. Adverse weather conditions meant that only around 3,000 arrived to watch the 'Halifax Pop and Blues Concert' which made a loss of £6,000.

Other uses

The adjacent Thrum Hall Cricket Ground hosted four first class cricket matches between 1888 and 1897.

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

played three

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

matches there, in July 1888 against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, August 1889 against

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

and

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in June 1897, while they played

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

in a non-championship fixture in July 1894. Kent were bowled out for 74 in their match, with Bobby Peel taking 8 for 93. Peel also bowled Gloucestershire out for just 89, taking 7 for 39, in a low scoring match which Yorkshire won by 3 wickets. The cricket ground had a

speedway Speedway may refer to: Racing Race tracks *Edmonton International Speedway, also known as Speedway Park, a former motor raceway in Edmonton, Alberta *Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a motor raceway in Speedway, Indiana Types of races and race cours ...

track constructed around the outside of it in 1928 and it was known as the Thrum Hall Grounds by this time. It hosted speedway until 1930 when the new

Halifax Greyhound Stadium Halifax Greyhound Stadium was a Greyhound racing in the United Kingdom, greyhound racing stadium and cricket ground on the same grounds as Thrum Hall in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Origins and opening The Thrum Hall cricket ground had a Motorcycle ...

was constructed on the site.

Closure

Halifax sold Thrum Hall for £1.5 million to

Asda Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of York ...

for a superstore development in 1998, and moved across town to their present home,

the Shay The Shay is a sports stadium in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. The stadium is owned by Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council and leased by the Shay Stadium Trust, a not-for-profit company set up to preserve the ground as a sports stadi ...

Stadium. The supermarket chain closed their existing store in Battinson Road, when the new store finally opened after a protracted legal battle in 2004. The final match to be played at the ground was on 22 March 1998 where Halifax defeated

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 ...

35–28.

Rugby League Test Matches

The list of international rugby league matches played at Thrum Hall is:Thrum Hall at Rugby League Project
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Rugby League Tour Matches

Thrum Hall also saw the Halifax R.L.F.C. play host to international touring teams from

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

(sometimes playing as

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...

) and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

from 1907–1994.

References

Bibliography

*{{cite book , title=The Grounds Of Rugby League , last1=Delaney , first1=Trevor , year=1991 , publisher=Trevor R. Delaney , location=

Keighley Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parish in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford. Keighley is north-west of Bradford city centre, north-west of Bi ...

, isbn=0-9509982-2-2 , url = https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grounds-Rugby-League-Trevor-Delaney/dp/0950998222 Defunct cricket grounds in England Sports venues in West Yorkshire Cricket grounds in West Yorkshire Halifax R.L.F.C. Defunct rugby league venues in England Buildings and structures in Halifax, West Yorkshire Sport in Halifax, West Yorkshire Defunct sports venues in West Yorkshire Sports venues completed in 1886