The Huddersfield Giants are an English professional rugby league club from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. Huddersfield play their home games at the FLAIR Stadium in Dewsbury and currently compete in the Super League, the top tier of British rugby league.
Huddersfield Giants have won the League Championship seven times and Challenge Cup six times.
The club's home colours are claret and thin gold hooped shirt, claret shorts and claret and gold hooped socks. They have or have had rivalries with Leeds Rhinos, Bradford Bulls, Halifax, Oldham, Keighley Cougars, Wakefield Trinity, Batley Bulldogs and Dewsbury Rams.
History 1848–1894: Foundation and early years The earliest record of a football match being played in the Huddersfield area is in 1848, when a team of men from Hepworth took on a team of men from Holmfirth near Whinney Bank in Holmfirth. Hepworth won a closely fought game which "exhibited the usual amount of confusions, bloody noses, etc" and took the prize of £5 which had been jointly donated by each side.
There appears to have been no formal structure to sport in the Huddersfield area until the opening of the Apollo Gymnasium on 3 August 1850. At this time the gymnasium was the only venue in the town where young men could take part in physical activities, it offered the opportunity to participate in fencing, swimming, bowling, cricket and many other sports.
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 public meeting at 8 o'clock 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. The club's 1864 foundation (a few months before that of Hull F.C.) means that it is the oldest Rugby League club, both in terms of foundation date and continuous history; it celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2014.
On 27 January 1866, twenty members of the Huddersfield Athletic Club agreed to play a football match against twenty of the Huddersfield Rifle Corps at Rifle Field in Trinity Street. Although the result was a scoreless 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 and each paying member was forced to pay a subscription of 2s/6d (half a crown/p). 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 club's players had been selected to represent Yorkshire. By 1872 there were so many players that a second team was formed.
The growth in popularity of the club and the need for better facilities led to the Huddersfield Athletic Club approaching St John's Cricket Club with a proposal to merge the two clubs. St John's Cricket Club had been formed in 1866 at Hillhouse and had moved to Fartown ground. By 1875, when amalgamation talks began, over £800 had been spent on developing the new ground. At a meeting on 27 November 1875, at the Thornhill Arms Inn the two clubs agreed to merge to form the Huddersfield Cricket and Athletics Club. The motion was passed by 55 votes to 37.
Initially the football section stayed at Rifle Field, but alterations made in the summer of 1878 meant that rugby could begin at the start of the 1878–79 season with the visit of Manchester Rangers on 2 November. The new ground would become the club's home for 114 years and would provide the club's famous "Fartown" nickname.
After the 1890–91 season, Huddersfield along with other Yorkshire Senior clubs Batley, Bradford, Brighouse, Dewsbury, Halifax, Huddersfield, Hull, Hunslet, Leeds, Liversedge, Manningham and Wakefield decided that they wanted their own county league starting in 1891 along the lines of a similar competition that had been played in Lancashire. The clubs wanted full control of the league but the Yorkshire Rugby Football Union would not sanction the competition as it meant giving up control of rugby football to the senior clubs.
1895-1920s: Northern Union and golden years In 1895 the club were founder members of the Northern Rugby Football Union, (later the Rugby Football League).
The club has seen many ups and downs in its long history, but for the first 60 years of rugby league it was one of the powerhouses of the game, with only Wigan as rivals in terms of trophies won.
Harold Wagstaff was only fifteen years and one hundred and seventy-five days old when he played his first match for Huddersfield, against Bramley in November 1906. At the time, he was the youngest first-team player the game had seen, he had signed on for a £5 signing-on fee.
Huddersfield beat the touring 1908–09 Kangaroos 5–3. They were impressed enough with stand-off Albert Rosenfeld to sign him up that evening along with Australian Dual Code International Pat Walsh one of the best forwards of the Kangaroos. Rosenfeld played his first game against Broughton Rangers on 11 September 1909.
The club's golden period came around the time of the First World War. The club was able to assemble a team of players from across the British Empire who swept all before them. Known as "The Team of All Talents", they were led by Harold Wagstaff and are still regarded as one of the finest football teams ever to have played. In the five years leading up to the First World War they won 13 trophies.
Two members of the team, centre Harold Wagstaff and wing Albert Rosenfeld were honoured by inclusion in the original Rugby League Hall of Fame. They were later joined by the Cumberland second row Douglas Clark. Of just seventeen players to be elected to the Hall of Fame, no fewer than three were teammates in that famous Huddersfield side. In total, Huddersfield boast five representatives in the Hall of Fame, more than any other club.
The particular fame of "The Team of All Talents" sprung from their extraordinary three quarter play. In 1911–12, Rosenfeld became the first player to score more than 50 tries in a season – a feat previously thought to be impossible. That season he scored 78. His wing partner, Stan Moorhouse scored 52. In 1912–13, Rosenfeld scored 56, and then in 1913–14 he broke his own record with 80 tries, a record which stands to this day.
On 28 February 1914, the club defeated Swinton Park by a record 119–2 (Rosenfeld contributing 7 tries) in a Challenge Cup tie at Fartown. The record would stand until 26 November 1994 when the Huddersfield club broke their own World Record by defeating Blackpool Gladiators 142–4 in a Challenge Cup tie at the McAlpine Stadium – centre Greg Austin scoring 9 tries on his way to 52 tries that season, a world record for a centre. In the 1914–15 season they became only the second team to win "all four cups" when they lifted the Championship, the Challenge Cup, the Yorkshire County Cup, and the Yorkshire League. Huddersfield's dominance prior to the First World War was such that they went unbeaten in 38 consecutive matches before the suspension of the league in 1915.
Huddersfield did not take part in the 1918–19 season. In the 1919–20 season, the first five games were won for a 43 match unbeaten run over six years which still stands as a record today. The unbeaten run consisted of 28 league matches, 8 Yorkshire Cup-ties, 5 Challenge Cup-ties and 2 League Championship play-offs. In addition, Huddersfield were drawing 8–8 in a Yorkshire Cup-tie that was abandoned because of fog and replayed.
The Yorkshire Cup and Yorkshire League trophies were already won when Huddersfield met Wigan in the Challenge Cup final which resulted in a 21–10 victory. Widnes were defeated in the Championship semi-final and Hull F.C. waited at Headingley as Huddersfield strove for a clean sweep of silverware. Huddersfield were missing five players who were touring Australasia with Great Britain and Hull won 3–2.
Albert Rosenfeld's last game for the club was on 2 April 1921, a cup-tie against Leeds.
Post-war era In the first full season after the war, a new record transfer fee of £1,650 was set when Dewsbury bought Bill Davies from Huddersfield. Huddersfield won the League Championship in 1949, beating Warrington 13–12 in the final at Maine Road, Manchester in front of what was at the time a world record crowd of 75,194. This capitalised on a season which also brought home the Yorkshire League title. The highest attendance at Fartown to watch a Huddersfield game was 32,912 against Wigan on 4 March 1950. More success followed in the 1950 season as Huddersfield retained the Yorkshire League title and reached another Championship final at Maine Road. However, on this occasion Wigan proved too strong, winning 20 points to 12. Huddersfield did, however, win the Yorkshire cup with a 16–3 victory over Castleford at Headingley. On Saturday 17 November 1951, in an ordinary league game, Australian Lionel Cooper scored a club record ten tries, as Huddersfield defeated Keighley 48–3 at Fartown.
By the end of the 1950s, Huddersfield had won 3 Yorkshire cup finals, in 1950–51, 1952–53 and 1957–58, and the Challenge Cup final, in 1952–53. Huddersfield beat St. Helens 15–10 in the 1953 Challenge Cup Final at Wembley. Wakefield Trinity beat Huddersfield 16–10 in the 1960 Yorkshire County Cup Final at Headingley, Leeds on 29 October 1960.Hoole, Les (2004). Wakefield Trinity RLFC – FIFTY GREAT GAMES. Breedon Books. In the 1961–62 season Huddersfield were beaten by Wakefield Trinity in the Challenge Cup final but then the following week fortunes were reversed and Huddersfield won the Championship play off final at Odsal. This is the last major trophy the club collected. In 1962, the league was split into East and West of the Pennines; Huddersfield and Hull Kingston Rovers met at Headingley, Leeds in the first final of the Eastern Division Championship on Saturday 10 November 1962. Reigning Champions Huddersfield were favourites to lift the Eastern Division title, especially as Rovers were missing five first choice players with injuries. The Robins, however, set the early pace and were 10–0 up after 30 minutes. Despite a rally by Huddersfield, Rovers hung on to win 13–10.
1970–1995: Decline and revival By the 1970s, the club had become a shadow of its former self; the old Fartown ground had fallen into disrepair and the club frequently finished in the lower reaches of the league. Local businessman, John Bailey, took a controlling interest in the stadium, the club and the pavilion. In 1984, in an attempt to revive the club, Huddersfield adopted the name 'Barracudas' and Fartown was renamed Arena 84. As the crowds continued to stay away, it became clear that Bailey could not stem the decline.
Huddersfield Rugby League Club was on the point of collapse. A new board of directors took over in 1989 and injected some much needed financial resources into the club. The 'Barracudas' and 'Arena 84' names were dropped for the 1988–89 season. Nigel Stephenson was appointed as coach and Huddersfield were helped by several clubs, in particular Featherstone Rovers, to put a reasonable squad together. As well as beginning to improve the playing staff, the new owners also carried out a considerable amount of work on the Fartown stadium and by the end of the 1989–90 season significant progress was being made. Average crowds topped 1,000 for the first time in a decade.