5-645: The Championship Final was a playoff series at the end of the RFL Championship season to determine the winners of the Championship. It was first contested in 1908 between Hunslet and Oldham but folded in 1972. The Super League Grand Final replaced it in 1998. Rugby Football League Championship The Rugby Football League Championship First Division was the top division of rugby league in Great Britain between 1895 and 1996, when it
10-528: A single new competition. The following season the remaining clubs in the Yorkshire and Lancashire Leagues were re-organised to form a second division . In 1905–06 the two divisions were re-combined into a single competition. Clubs played all the teams in their own county on a home-and-away basis, results counting towards the re-formed Yorkshire and Lancashire Leagues. They also organised inter-county fixtures on an individual basis; all results were collated into
15-460: A single table for the Championship. In order to even up the competition a top-four play-off series was used to determine the Championship. Apart from the interventions of the two world wars , this system was retained until the 1962–63 season, when the league briefly returned to a two divisional system. This lasted only two years, and in the 1964–65 season they returned to one large division subdivided into county leagues. The play-offs were expanded to
20-551: The top 16 teams and the Harry Sunderland Trophy was introduced as the man-of-the-match award for the decider. In the 1973–74 season they once again went back to two divisions. The play-off and the Yorkshire and Lancashire League were abandoned, and a new play-off type competition, the Premiership , was introduced however the team finishing top of the Championship were crowned champions. During this period in
25-623: Was replaced by the Super League . The first season of rugby league (1895–96) saw all the breakaway clubs play in a single league competition. The addition of new teams and the problems of travelling led to the league being split in two for the following season; into the Yorkshire League and the Lancashire League . This arrangement lasted until the 1901–02 season, when the top clubs from each league resigned and formed
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