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Friday 24 May 2019 12:05, UK
Top-level rugby league returns to Liverpool on Saturday and Sunday when Super League brings its annual Magic Weekend to Anfield. With that in mind, we take a look at rugby league in the city and what the future holds for it...
When it comes to sport in Liverpool, the two Fs of football and the fight game generally hold sway.
The Premier League giants of Magic Weekend hosts Liverpool and near-neighbours Everton have long been the city's dominant sports clubs, with a strong non-league, amateur, schools and junior football scene below them.
Liverpool has produced countless successful amateur and professional boxers as well, with the likes of John Conteh and Tony Bellew claiming world titles. More recently, mixed martial arts has boomed there too, spearheaded by the exploits of Darren Till.
Rugby of either code, on the other hand, has generally existed on the periphery of Merseyside's sporting consciousness, although league has tried to set down roots with a professional presence in the past.
It has not been a story of success though. The original Liverpool City hold the dubious distinction of failing to win a single game during the Northern Union's 1906/07 season before folding, while their successors fared only marginally better.
Liverpool Stanley - who took on the City name in 1951 - won the Lancashire League in 1936 and finished second overall in the combined Championship table just two years after their previous incarnation of London Highfield relocated to the area. However, that glory proved fleeting.
After leaving their home ground in Knotty Ash in 1968 due to being informed the lease would not be renewed, the club spent several fruitless years playing in, and under the name of, the Huyton area of the city before being forced to leave the often-vandalised Alt Park in 1984. They then embarked on a nomadic existence in Runcorn, the Sutton area of St Helens and Prescot prior to folding in 1997.
"Since at least the mid-1960s it appeared obvious to most rugby league observers that Liverpool and its surrounding locality would never display a strong empathy with rugby league," Mike Brocken wrote in his book Liverpool City RLFC: Rugby league in a football city.
"The move to Runcorn, therefore, finally showed professional rugby league could not survive within an area so dominated by association football."
Professional rugby league may have long since vanished from Liverpool, but there still remains a dedicated band of enthusiasts keeping the sport alive.
The University of Liverpool hold a small but important place in the history of rugby league, having played the first recognised student game in this country against their counterparts from Leeds in 1968.
These days, the club has both men's and women's sections, while their cross-city rivals at Liverpool John Moores University won the national BUCS Trophy in 2018.
But these teams are mostly made up of players who hail from outside the city's boundaries, and if there is to be a future for the 13-man code in Liverpool, then it surely lies with the area's next generation.
That in itself is a challenge, with no development officer in the area to help, but Liverpool Lions are doing their best to encourage youngsters to pick up the oval ball.
The Lions, based in Croxteth, currently run U9 and U10 teams in the North West Counties Youth and Junior League, and have former Warrington Wolves player Lee Briers involved on the coaching side.
One of their former players is involved in the youth set-up at Super League side St Helens, too, in Jack Green.
Another player from Liverpool who has made it through to play at the highest level is another former Saints player in England prop and Maghull native James Graham, these days starring for St George Illawara Dragons in the NRL.
So far, however, Graham - who played his youth rugby with St Helens amateur club Thatto Heath Crusaders - and Green are very much the exceptions.
The upcoming Magic Weekend marks the third time in four years top-level rugby league has come to Liverpool, following on from the 2016 Four Nations final and last year's Test match between England and New Zealand.
That has given hope there could be a professional team returning to the city in the near future, with plans already in place to earn admission to League One for the 2021 season.
Those are being backed by former Salford Red Devils chairman Marwan Koukash, businessman Andrew Mikhail and entrepreneur and former Widnes Vikings board member Luke Backhouse.
"We're getting help from the council and in terms of getting sponsors and investors, we haven't had to go looking," Backhouse told Insider Media last month. "They're excited about how big it could become.
"Rugby league has that potential; it just needs that excitement about it. It's always been marketed as a small-town sport and the working man's game, but it needs to be expanded."
An official launch for the team is expected soon, with plans to support the growth of the sport at amateur level and in the city's schools too.
Some of this has been tried before and, as Brocken wrote: "The question still remains: Will rugby league ever make a sizeable impact on the city of Liverpool?"
If it is to, then Magic Weekend could well prove to be a springboard, especially if it makes Anfield its home for the next couple of years.
