1954 Challenge Cup

1954 Challenge Cup

Duration	5 rounds
Winners	Warrington
Runners-up	Halifax

The 1954 Challenge Cup was the 53rd staging of rugby league's oldest knockout competition, the Challenge Cup.^[1] It featured clubs from the 1953–54 Northern Rugby Football League season and is notable for its Final which had to be replayed before possibly the largest crowd in rugby league history.

First Round

Second Round

Quarter Finals

Semi Finals

Final

Halifax and Warrington, the teams that finished first and second respectively on the Championship ladder (separated by only one competition point), reached the Challenge Cup Final Saturday 24 April 1954. It was played at Wembley and 81,841 spectators saw what turned out to be a lacklustre match.

After a couple of penalties, Halifax led 4-0 at half time, then in the second half Warrington drew level, also kicking two penalties. The final score was 4 - 4 and it remains the only time Wembley hasn't seen a single try on Cup Final day. The re-play was scheduled for 5pm on Wednesday 5 May 1954 at Odsal Stadium, Bradford.

Final replay

Around 70,000 spectators were expected at Odsal for the replay which was rescheduled for a 7pm kick-off to avoid the rush hour traffic. The twenty trains and fifty buses, specially scheduled for the match, as well as the 100 gatesmen and 150 policemen at the ground were therefore believed to be adequate. However the closeness with which the two teams were matched and the prospect of the Challenge Cup decider coming north for the first time in a decade seem to have generated immense interest.

People had started queuing a good hour before the shuttle buses started running from 4:25pm. The gates opened at 5.00pm, and by that time some people had already been queuing for an hour and a half. At an hour before kick off there were already an estimated 60,000 in the ground. The traffic on the roads in the surrounding area was at a standstill as more and more spectators converged on the stadium. Some squatted around the pitch, while others climbed onto rooftops for a better view. Fences around the ground had collapsed, as more people struggled to cram into the bowl of Odsal before kick-off. The official figure for the crowd at the match was 102,575,.^[3] However it is widely believed that the real figure for spectators present is closer to 120,000.^[4]

The match itself was another low-scoring struggle, but an improvement on the last one. Jim Challinor opened the scoring with a try for Warrington after nine minutes. Half an hour later, Tyssul Griffiths kicked a penalty for the Halifax side, who had also had two tries disallowed. This meant a half time score of 3 - 2 in favour of Warrington.

The third quarter of the match saw additional goals kicked by both Griffiths and Harry Bath, bringing the score to 5 - 4, still just one point in favour of Warrington. Then Gerry Helme scored a try, which Bath couldn't convert, putting Warrington four points clear of Halifax, but still within a converted try. Controversy reared just before full-time, when Halifax had a third try disallowed by referee Ron Gelder. Warrington had claimed their 4th Challenge Cup, with Helme winning the Lance Todd Trophy for his match-winning performance, the first player to do so twice.

References