Workington Town

Workington Town RLFC is a professional rugby league club playing in Workington in West Cumbria. In the 2015 season they will play in the Kingstone Press Championship. Their stadium is called the Zebra Claims Stadium, formerly known as Derwent Park, which they share with Workington Comets, a speedway team.

They became Rugby League Champions in 1951 and also won the Challenge Cup a year later in 1952. Their nickname is simply 'Town', though they are sometimes referred to as 'Worky' by fans of other teams. Their local rivals are Whitehaven, who joined the league three years after Workington Town.

History

1944-1945: Establishment

Workington Town RLFC was formed at a meeting held in the Royal Oak Hotel, Workington in December 1944. Many of Workington Town's board came from local soccer team Workington AFC's board and the team would ground share with "the Reds" at Borough Park. It was decided at the meeting that the club should be registered as a business and that an application for membership of the Rugby Football League should be submitted. From those in attendance at that meeting the first board of directors was formed and the application for membership was agreed at a meeting held on 23 January 1945 at the Grosvenor Hotel, Manchester. They were the first side from Cumberland to enter the professional rugby league.

Workington

Coordinates: 54°38′11″N 3°33′18″W / 54.6365°N 3.5549°W / 54.6365; -3.5549

Workington is a town, civil parish and port at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast of Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland and lying in the Borough of Allerdale, Workington is 32 miles (51.5 km) southwest of Carlisle, 7 miles (11.3 km) west of Cockermouth, and 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Maryport. At the 2011 Census it had a population of 25,207.

Workington is the seat of Allerdale Borough Council, one of three borough councils in Cumbria. Sue Hayman is the MP for the constituency of the same name that includes other towns in Workington's hinterland.

History

The area around Workington has long been a producer of coal and steel.

Between AD 79 and AD 122, Roman forts, mile-forts and watchtowers were established along the Cumbrian coast. They were coastal defences against attacks by the Scoti from Ireland and by the Caledonii, the most powerful tribe in what is now Scotland. The 16th-century Britannia, written by William Camden describes ruins of the coastal defences at Workington.

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size definition for what constitutes a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world.

Origin and use

The word town shares an origin with the German word Stadt, the Dutch word tuin, and the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the original meaning of the word: a fence of any material. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom (cf. Old Irish dun, Welsh din "fortress, fortified place, camp," dinas "city;"

In English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a small community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications, and built a palisade or stockade instead. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of the wealthy, which had a high fence or a wall around them (like the garden of palace Het Loo in Apeldoorn, which was the example for the privy garden of William and Mary at Hampton Court). In Old Norse tun means a (grassy) place between farmhouses, and is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian.

Barrow Raiders

Barrow Raiders are an English professional rugby league team from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, who are coached by Paul Crarey. Formed in 1875 as Barrow Football Club, the club is the oldest of the current professional sports teams in Cumbria. For the 1995-96 and 1996 seasons the club was known as Barrow Braves, adopting its current name for the 1997 season following a merger with Carlisle Border Raiders.

From 2015, Barrow Raiders will compete in the re-structured Kingstone Press League 1, the third tier of European rugby league (behind the Super League and Kingstone Press Championship). They were promoted from Championship One at the end of the 2012 season after being relegated the previous year. They had previously won the second tier Co-operative Championship in 2009, and finished fourth in 2010.

History

Early years

Barrow Football Club were formed in 1875 and played their first home game on 4 December of that year against Royal Grammar School, Lancaster at Cavendish Park on Barrow Island, then home to the town's cricket club. It is thought that Tom H. Baynes, a shipping clerk, was the driving force behind the club's foundation. As well as being a player, he was probably also the first Barrow team coach. Early practice matches games were played in "a field loaned by a local farmer" as well as the Parade Ground and the aforementioned Cavendish Park.

York City Knights

York City Knights RLFC is an English professional rugby league club based in York. In the 2015 season they will play in the Kingstone Press League One. The Knights became homeless at the end of the 2014 season and played games in 2015 at Clifton Park and Post Office Road, before settling at Elm Park Way, shared with Heworth ARLFC. For the 2016 season, the team will share Bootham Crescent with York City F.C..

History

The Start

On 19 March 2002, after completing 11 games,York Wasps announced that they had folded. After a last-ditch take-over deal to save the Wasps collapses, the RFL accept the club's resignation on 26 March. A supporters' trust working party was formed on 27 March and applied to the RFL to continue the 2002 Northern Ford Premiership fixtures. After hearing it would be impossible to meet requirements to return that season, on 5 May fans backed new proposals for a new club to apply for admittance to the league for 2003.

The RFL accepted York's bid to play in the newly formed National League Two on condition that they had £75,000 in the bank by 31 August. The new club decided that the best way to raise cash was through a fans' membership scheme. Former Great Britain star Paul Broadbent was revealed as player-coach. With the total standing at £70,000, John Smith's brewery came in with £5,000 as the club hit the target just hours before the deadline.