1925-1926

To the management, and to our supporters, too, the season must have been full of frustration and intense disappointment with little apparently to show for all the endeavours, hard work, and loyal support. In hard, unforgiving and unchangeable fact Leeds had once again failed to gain any major honours: 9th in the Northern Rugby League Table, 4th in the Yorkshire League Table, quarter finalists in the Yorkshire Cup and the Rugby League Cup Competitions. The unseeing and the unknowing might well say ?No good. No progress. No hope.? And yet, we, who can look back in retrospect, see the silver lining to the clouds knowing now, in certainty, that some of the ?captures? made in the close season and during the campaign were to add greater glories to ?Blue and Amber? and to see glorious days at Headingley.

For we who can now look back, in true perspective, know full well that those who obtained the services of Jim Brough, and Evan Williams had done a great stroke of business for the Leeds Club, and the R.L. game in general, and that these two along with some already at Headingley, and others to follow, were to carry the jersey to greater triumphs.

Jim Brough, an English R. U. International, was signed during the summer of 1925, and he made his first appearance with the Club in the York game at Headingley on 2nd September of that year. He was destined to make 442 appearances with the Leeds 1st team, to play in the Cup winning team at Wigan in 1932, to captain the successful Leeds team at Wembley in 1936 and to tour Australia in 1928 and 1936.

Evan Williams, not quite so colourful as Brough, but surely one of the finest tacticians who has ever played for Leeds, was to make 415 appearances and he, too, was to take part in those two tremendous Cup Final games.

The management must have had their worries at the end of this season for so little was apparently yet achieved-and yet, if they only knew, so much. The basis was now laid for the highly successful team of the thirties, and we are to read later of the players who put the finishing touch to a ?highly promising Leeds team.?

The season opened badly with a home defeat at the hands of St. Helens Recs. in the very first match, but consistently good performances resulted in the team gaining 5th position in the table by mid November. December found us third, and early January fifth, but three successive defeats in that month and three more in April caused a natural slide in the table so that our final position was ninth.

Fortune did not smile on us in the Yorkshire Cup Competition as we had to travel in the first two rounds. A narrow victory at Thrum Hall by two points to nil in the first round raised hopes, but it was expecting too much for a victory at Fartown too, although we went down gallantly. The R.L. Challenge Cup Competition also provided stern tasks and stiff opposition. Salford were narrowly defeated at the Weaste, and we obtained a splendid win over Wigan at Headingley, but Wigan Highfield, away, was our downfall. And there was no disgrace in that, for our opponents had already proved too good for Wakefield Trinity and Huddersfield.

Surely one of the highlights of the season was our triple defeat of Wigan. At Central Park, in September, we gained a magnificent victory by five points to nil in atrocious conditions, and no one played a finer part than Joe Thompson who, literally, dribbled the way to victory. In January, at Headingley, we completed the double in great style in winning by 18 points to 5, and here Jim Brough provided the inspiration at the crucial stage of the game. Two Wigan forwards with the ball at their feet rushed at the Leeds line. Brough took the ball from their toes and kicked clear. He followed up and caught the ball as it bounced from Sullivan?s hands and raced half the length of the field to score behind the posts. The third meeting came in the 2nd Round of the Cup Competition when Leeds deservedly won by seventeen points to ten before a crowd of 35,000. On this occasion Joe Thompson?s goal-kicking was a vital factor-not in the number of goals he kicked but in kicking them when they were needed.

Other signings during the season included Bryn Williams, winger from Batley; C. Mason, the Cumbrian forward; and W. H. James the Aberavon back. Several players were transferred from Leeds including: E. D. Roberts to Dewsbury; H. W. Trusler, to Keighley; W. E. Lyons to Halifax; G. H. Broughton to Hunslet; F. Millard to Featherstone Rovers; and Syd Walmsley who had served the club so well, making 186 First Team appearances in five full seasons, went to Huddersfield. He obviously could not hold his place in view of the advent of Jim Brough, but Syd was to give great pleasure to our members for another 25 years by his exploits on the Cricket Field.

A disappointing season! Yes. Hope for the future? Definitely, yes.