1948–49 Yorkshire Cup

1948–49 was the forty-first occasion on which the Yorkshire Cup competition had been held.

Bradford Northern won the trophy by beating Castleford by the score of 18-9

The match was played at Headingley, Leeds, now in West Yorkshire. The attendance was 31,393 and receipts were £5,053

The first of two successive wins for Bradford Northern

Background
This season, junior/amateur clubs Yorkshire Amateurs were again invited to take part and the number of clubs who entered remained at the same as last season's total number of sixteen.

This in turn resulted in no byes in the first round.

The competition again followed the  original formula of a knock-out tournament, with the  exception of the  first round which was still played on a two-legged home and away basis.

Round 1 – first leg
Involved 8 matches (with no byes) and 16 clubs

All first round ties are played on a two-legged home and away basis

Round 1 – second leg
Involved 8 matches (with no byes) and 16 clubs

All first round ties are played on a two-legged home and away basis

Round 2 - quarterfinals
Involved 4 matches and 8 clubs

All second round ties are played on a knock-out basis

Round 3 – semifinals
Involved 2 matches and 4 clubs

Both semi-final ties are played on a knock-out basis

Round 3 – semifinals - Replay
Involved 2 matches and 4 clubs

Both semi-final ties are played on a knock-out basis

Teams and scorers
Scoring - Try = three (3) points - Goal = two (2) points - Drop goal = two (2) points

The road to success
All the ties in the first round were played on a two leg (home and away) basis.

For the first round ties, the first club named in each of the ties played the first leg at home.

For the first round ties, the scores shown are the aggregate score over the two legs.

Notes and comments
1 * Yorkshire Amateurs were a team from Yorkshire which appeared to have players selected from many both professional and amateur clubs - can anyone comment ? Yorkshire Amateurs played on many grounds, this match was played at Parkside, the ground of Hunslet

2 * Headingley, Leeds, 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.

General information for those unfamiliar
The Rugby League 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, Mansfield, Coventry, 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)