Rugby league is played across England but is most popular in Northern England, especially Yorkshire and Lancashire where the game originated. These areas are the heartland of rugby league. The sport is also popular in Cumbria where the amateur game is particularly powerful.
Leigh Leopards lifting the Challenge Cup at Wembley Stadium for the first time in over 50 years.
The first ever Challenge Cup final, 1897: Batley (left) vs St. Helens (right)
Leeds playing at the 2008 Boxing Day friendly against Wakefield Trinity at Headingley, Leeds
The final home Test for Great Britain against New Zealand in 2007
Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby XIII in non-Anglophone Europe and South America, and referred to colloquially as rugby, football, footy or league in its heartlands, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 m (74 yd) wide and 112–122 m (122–133 yd) long with H-shaped posts at both ends. It is one of the two major codes of rugby football, the other being rugby union. It originated in 1895 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England, as the result of a split from the Rugby Football Union (RFU) over the issue of payments to players. The rules of the game governed by the new Northern Rugby Football Union progressively changed from those of the RFU with the specific aim of producing a faster and more entertaining game to appeal to spectators, on whose income the new organisation and its members depended.
An attacking player attempts to evade two defenders.
George Hotel, Huddersfield, the birthplace of rugby league
The first ever Challenge Cup Final, 1897: Batley (left) vs St Helens (right)
A typical game of rugby league being played
