1.
Holmfirth
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Holmfirth is a small town on the A6024 Woodhead Road in the Holme Valley, within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. Centred upon the confluence of the Holme and Ribble rivers, Holmfirth is 6 miles south of Huddersfield and 13 miles northeast of Glossop and it mostly consists of stone-built cottages nestled in the Pennine hills. The Peak District National Park around Holme Moss is 4 miles to the south of the town, historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Holmfirth was once a centre for pioneering film-making by Bamforth & Co. which later switched to the production of saucy seaside postcards. Between 1973 and 2010 both Holmfirth and the Holme Valley became well known as the location of the BBCs situation comedy Last of the Summer Wine. The town originally grew up around a mill and bridge in the 13th century. Three hundred years later Holmfirth expanded rapidly as the cloth trade grew. The present parish church was built in 1778 after the church built in 1476 was swept away in a flood the previous year, in 1850 Holmfirth railway station opened, on the branch line built by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company. Local men who served and died in the First and Second World Wars are commemorated on the Holme Valley War Memorial found outside Holme Valley Memorial Hospital. Holmfirth was the home of Bamforth & Co Ltd, who were known for their cheeky seaside postcards – although around the time of the First World War. The printing works on Station Road has now converted into residential flats. Bamforths company were pioneers of film-making, before they abandoned the business in favour of postcards. There are a number of instances when flooding has occurred in the Holme Valley affecting Holmfirth, the earliest recorded Holmfirth flood was in 1738 and the most recent was 1944. The most severe flood occurred early on the morning of 5 February 1852, following a severe storm in 1777 the River Holme burst its banks, sweeping away people and property with the loss of three lives, the stone church built in 1476, was also swept away. A storm in 1821 again caused the river to burst its banks, the flooding on the night of 29 May 1944 was not nationally reported and it was then overshadowed by the D-Day landings the following week. Holmfirth is the setting for the BBCs long-running comedy Last of the Summer Wine, thousands of tourists flock to the area each year to enjoy scenery and locations familiar from the series. Filming of the TV Slaithwaite-based drama, Where the Heart Is, had taken place in. The former Lodges supermarket building had been sitting empty in the heart of the town since the Co-op moved to new premises in Crown Bottom, Lodges was built in the 1970s by the prominent local grocery company. It was opened by Radio 1 DJ Tony Blackburn and occupied a location over the River Holme beside the towns small bus station
2.
Huddersfield Giants
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Huddersfield Giants R. L. F. C. are an English professional rugby league club from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, the birthplace of rugby league, who play in the Super League competition. They have won 7 Championships and 6 Challenge Cups, but have not won a trophy since 1962. The club was known as Huddersfield Barracudas from 1984–88 and Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants for the 2000 season and they play in a distinctive strip of a claret shirt with thin gold hoops, claret shorts and claret and gold hooped socks. They have rivalries with Warrington Wolves, Leeds Rhinos, Bradford Bulls, Halifax and Wakefield Trinity Wildcats. The earliest record of a match being played in the Huddersfield area is in 1848. Hepworth won a close game which exhibited the usual amount of confusions, bloody noses, etc. There appears to have no formal structure to sport in the Huddersfield area until the opening of the Apollo Gymnasium on 3 August 1850. In 1864 the Apollo Gymnasium was turned into the Gymnasium Theatre, the athletes of the gymnasium responded by forming a more organised athletics association. In an advertisement headed Huddersfield Athletic Club they invited gentlemen desirous of becoming members to a meeting at 8 oclock on the evening of 16 November 1864 at the Queen Hotel. The meeting went ahead, a hundred names were registered and a committee was formed, within a month a new gymnasium was in service in a basement on Back John William Street. On 27 January 1866 twenty members of the Huddersfield Athletic Club agreed to play a match against twenty of the Huddersfield Rifle Corps at Rifle Field in Trinity Street. Although the result was a draw, a large crowd was attracted. In light of this, the Huddersfield Athletic Club agreed to start a football section which was to start at the beginning of December 1866. Initially the Huddersfield Athletic Club made no contribution to the support of the football club, as the football club grew, it became a useful recruiting tool for the Huddersfield Athletic Club. In 1869 six matches were played and by 1870 three of the players had been selected to represent Yorkshire. By 1872 there were so many players that a team was formed. The growth in popularity of the club and the need for better facilities led to the Huddersfield Athletic Club approaching St Johns Cricket Club with a proposal to merge the two clubs, St Johns Cricket Club had been formed in 1866 at Hillhouse and had moved to Fartown ground. By 1875, when talks began, over £800 had been spent on developing the new ground
3.
England national rugby league team
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The England national rugby league team represent England in international rugby league football tournaments. The team has now seen a revival, having formed from the Great Britain team. The team is run under the auspices of the Rugby Football League, as of 2008, the team now participates in all World Cups, Four Nations and test matches. The team dates back to 1904 when they played against a mixture of Welsh and Scottish players in Wigan, since then, and until the 1950s, they regularly toured Australia and New Zealand and played both home and away matches against neighbours Wales and France. But when it was decided that Great Britain would tour the Southern Hemisphere instead of England, France, even then though, there are some long periods where England barely played any matches. Their first appearance in the Rugby League World Cup was in 1975, and since then they have become runners-up in 1975 and 1995, in 2008, they competed in the 2008 World Cup in Australia. For many years England also competed in the European Nations Cup and in 2006, in the past Englands main rivals have been Wales and France, with the rivalry stretching back to 1908 and 1934 respectively. However, Englands main rivals would now be Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, traditionally a predominantly white kit is worn including white shorts and socks. However the jersey usually features some form of red, like red stripes, crosses or chevrons and these colours are similar to other English sporting teams and are the colours used on the national flag. In 2008 a new kit was introduced featuring a red cross on the front and red strips down the sides of the jersey, shorts and socks were white too with red strips. Also in 2008, the Rugby Football League chose to abandon the traditional English lion on the badge in favour of a simpler shield. Currently the team is ranked third in the world, behind Australia, wayne Bennett is the head coach and Sam Burgess is the current captain. In 1895 twenty-one clubs split with the Rugby Football Union, citing that they wanted to play professionally, the twenty-one clubs were all from Northern England and the players were largely working class. However it was not just English players who made the switch, Scottish and Welsh players also switched allegiance to the new code, switching heightened in the early 20th century with more Scottish and Welsh players leaving the RFU than ever before. At the start of 1903 season the Northern Union thought about international matches, on that day though, the ground was frosty and the match was cancelled and it was rescheduled for April. On 5 April 1904 England competed against a team called Other Nationalities and it was a period of experimentation for the Northern Union and each team had twelve players, not thirteen. At Central Park, Wigan the ground was muddy and in poor condition, England steamed into a 3–0 lead, from a try by Warringtons Jackie Fish. This is despite Salfords James Lomas arriving late and causing England to start the match with eleven players, Fish missed the conversion and so the Other Nationalities were able to level the scores a little later, Welshman Thomas crashing over for a try
4.
Rugby league
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Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field. One of the two codes of football, it originated in England in 1895 as a split from the Rugby Football Union over the issue of payments to players. Its rules gradually changed with the aim of producing a faster, in rugby league, points are scored by carrying the ball and touching it to the ground beyond the opposing teams goal line, this is called a try, and is the primary method of scoring. The opposing team attempts to stop the side scoring points by tackling the player carrying the ball. In addition to tries, points can be scored by kicking goals, after each try, the scoring team gains a free kick to try at goal with a conversion for further points. Kicks at goal may also be awarded for penalties, and field goals can be attempted at any time. Rugby league is a sport in Northern England, the states of Queensland and New South Wales in Australia, New Zealand. The European Super League and Australasian National Rugby League are the club competitions. Rugby league is played internationally, predominantly by European, Australasian and Pacific Island countries, the first Rugby League World Cup was held in France in 1954, the current holders are Australia. The first of these, the Northern Rugby Football Union, was established in 1895 as a faction of Englands Rugby Football Union. Similar breakaway factions split from RFU-affiliated unions in Australia and New Zealand in 1907 and 1908, renaming themselves rugby football leagues, in 1922, the Northern Union also changed its name to the Rugby Football League and thus over time the sport itself became known as rugby league football. In 1895, a schism in Rugby football resulted in the formation of the Northern Rugby Football Union, within fifteen years of that first meeting in Huddersfield, more than 200 RFU clubs had left to join the rugby revolution. In 1897, the line-out was abolished and in 1898 professionalism introduced, in 1906, the Northern Union changed its rules, reducing teams from 15 to 13 a side and replacing the ruck formed after every tackle with the play the ball. A similar schism to that which occurred in England took place in Sydney, There, on 8 August 1907 the New South Wales Rugby Football League was founded at Batemans Hotel in George Street. Rugby league then went on to rugby union as the primary football code in New South Wales. On 5 May 1954 over 100,000 spectators watched the 1953–54 Challenge Cup Final at Odsal Stadium, Bradford, England, also in 1954 the Rugby League World Cup, the first for either code of rugby, was formed at the instigation of the French. In 1966, the International Board introduced a rule that a team in possession was allowed three play-the-balls and on the tackle a scrum was to be formed. This was increased to six tackles in 1972 and in 1983 the scrum was replaced by a handover,1967 saw the first professional Sunday matches of rugby league played
5.
Emerald Headingley Stadium
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Headingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the suburb of Headingley in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Leeds Rhinos rugby league team, there are two separate grounds, Headingley Cricket Ground and Headingley Rugby Stadium with a two-sided stand housing common facilities. Initially owned by the Leeds Cricket, Football and Athletic Company, in December 2005 Yorkshire County Cricket Club obtained a loan of £9 million from Leeds City Council towards the cost of purchasing the cricket ground for £12 million. Shortly afterwards,98. 37% of members who participated in a vote backed the deal, on 11 January 2006, the club announced plans to rebuild the stand next to the rugby ground with 3,000 extra seats, taking capacity to 20,000. The club also announced plans to redevelop the Winter Shed stand on 25 August 2006 providing a £12.5 million pavilion complex, the cricket ground sits to the Northern side of the complex. It opened in 1891 and has used for test matches since 1899. It is the home ground of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. The ground last held The Ashes in 2009, since 2015 the cricket ground has been floodlit. The ground has a capacity of 17,500, executive facilities. All but the stand at the ground end have been rebuilt since 2000. The rugby ground sits to the Southern side of the complex, historically a rugby league ground it now hosts both codes. It is home to Leeds Rhinos rugby league team and Yorkshire Carnegie rugby union club, the ground consists of three stands and an open terrace at one end, one stand is completely seated, one standing and one mixed. It has a capacity of 21,000, Yorkshire County Cricket Club have shown keen interest in redeveloping the northern side of the ground. If Headingley is to retain Test Ground Status it is likely that further improvements will need to be made to the ground, on 5 June 2014 Yorkshire CCC announced the Headingley Masterplan. The phased redevelopment costing around £50 million will take place over the next 20 years, phase One Erection of four permanent floodlight pylons. The work should start for the start of the 2015 season, - The floodlights are now complete. The head is built in the shape of the Yorkshire Rose, the first game to be played under them was the T20 against Derbyshire Falcons on Friday 15 May 2015. Phase Four The development of a new Pavilion located in the North West area of the stadium complex, built on five levels, the Pavilion will be adjacent to the existing Carnegie Pavilion
6.
Headingley Rugby Stadium
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Leeds St. Johns, who were later to become Leeds Rugby League Football Club then Leeds Rhinos, moved to Headingley in 1889 and built Headingley stadium. Since then the stadium has staged more than 40 international matches, the ground now has a capacity of 21,000. It is the second largest stadium in Leeds after Elland Road, Headingley hosted rugby leagues first ever Challenge Cup Final in 1897. In the 1930s, major developments took place on two sides of the rugby ground. The South Stand was completed in 1931, with some of the work being carried out by club players, by the end of 1932, a new North Stand had been completed. The record attendance at Headingley was 40,175 for the league match between Leeds and Bradford Northern on 21 May 1947. Undersoil heating was installed in 1963 but has since removed due to ongoing problems. The 1970 Rugby League World Cup Final between Great Britain and Australia was played at the stadium before a crowd of 18,776, the third and deciding Test of the 1978 Ashes series was played at Headingley before a crowd of 30,604. New changing rooms were added in 1991, the same year Leeds RFU were founded and moved into Headingley, Headingley only hosted one match of the 1995 Rugby League World Cup, held in England and Wales to celebrate the centenary of rugby league in England. Host nation England defeated rugby league minnows South Africa 46–0 in front of 14,041 fans, in July 1998, Leeds RUFC became part of the worlds first dual-code rugby partnership, Leeds Rugby Limited. In 2001 capacity was increased marginally by extending the terracing around the corner in between the Western Terraces and the North Stand,2006 saw the construction of the Carnegie Stand. Built to replace the old terrace, it was opened on 1 September 2006 for the Super League match between Leeds Rhinos and Warrington Wolves. The building of this stand replaced the ageing executive facilities which were situated towards the rear of the Eastern Terraces. 21,062 turned out to see the Rhinos defeat Manly 26-12 and this saw Leeds gain some revenge for their 28-20 loss to Manly in the 2009 World Club Challenge at Elland Road. Headingley also hosted a Quarter-final game on Friday 15 November between New Zealand and Scotland which New Zealand won by 40–4 to a crowd of 16,207. In 2015 Headingley hosted New Zealand again for the first time since 2013 where they took on Leeds Rhinos as a warm up for their test series against England and it also marked 120 years of rugby league being played at the stadium. Capacity-4,810 The North Stand backs onto the ground and is where the players changing rooms are. A bar area is shared with the cricket ground and is completely covered
