Home of Rugby League champions to host Test Rugby Union

Whenever Wakefield and rugby union are mentioned in the same breadth, it’s normally as a reference to Wavell Wakefield, the former England Grand Slam-winning captain of the 1920s and RFU President, who was posthumously inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2015.

Of a more recent vintage, RWC 2003 winner Mike Tindall was educated in the city, at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School (QEGS), treading the same corridors as England’s first RWC captain, winger Mike Harrison, whose moniker ‘Burglar Bill’ was born out of his capacity for scoring intercept tries and now lives on as the name of the monthly newsletter chronicling all things related to rugby union in Wakefield.

First-class rugby union in Wakefield pretty much died a death 22 years ago, on 22 April, 2004, when the Yorkshire city’s premier team was beaten 15-11 by Coventry at its College Grove home, resulting in relegation from National One and the club being wound up without barely any assets, other devoted super-fan, volunteer press officer and rugby historian, Richard Lowther.

While Rugby union does still have a presence in the Wakefield district, thanks to junior club Sandal, the loss of Wakefield RFC was a bitter blow to diehards like Lowther, who painstakingly puts together Burglar Bill, which is packed full of insights and anecdotes from a bygone age. Subscribers include former England boss Stuart Lancaster, who played in the black and gold of Wakefield before moving to Leeds.

One of the more curious links between rugby union and Wakefield that has attracted Lowther’s eye is happening this Saturday, not at College Grove but across the city at the DIY Kitchens Stadium, formerly known as Belle Vue before the commercial naming rights were sold. The match has prompted him to look at the history of international rugby in England’s largest county.

Lowther believes that Saturday’s Test match between Zimbabwe and Samoa, who’ve never met before, will be the first game of 15-a-side rugby to be played on the Belle Vue site – home to the current Super League champions, Wakefield Trinity – since Sandal played Sheffield there in 1948.

One thing is certain, it is the first rugby union test match to be played in Wakefield and the 12th in total in Yorkshire, dating back to the 1880s, when Cardigan Fields in Leeds hosted an England vs Wales match.

Exactly how Wakefield was chosen to be the venue, no one seems to know, but it gives rugby union a showcase opportunity in a city where rugby league is king, and ticket sales have been encouraging, with the Neil Fox MBE East Stand sold out in advance of match week.

After taking on Samoa, Zimbabwe’s next ‘home’ game will be in more familiar rugby union surroundings – Vallis Way, the home ground of leading Champ club, Ealing Trailfinders.

The Sables take on Uruguay at the west London venue on Saturday 14 November, before concluding their Nations Cup campaign a week later against Chile in Angoulême, France.