Sourcing caveat: Try minutes, referee, and Halifax's scoring breakdown could not be confirmed from available sources. Lineups added on this second pass: direct en.wikipedia.org fetches of this article's rendered HTML consistently drop the player names out of the final's team-sheet template (shirt numbers and, on other seasons, position abbreviations come through, but the name cells arrive empty) — a genuine, reproducible extraction gap, not a missing-data problem. Wikiwand (a Wikipedia mirror with different page rendering) succeeded on the first attempt and returned both full XIIIs, with St Helens' listed names lining up exactly against the tries/goals/captaincy already recorded above (Carlton, Llewellyn, Prescott as captain and prop). Position labels are not printed on the Wikiwand page itself — only shirt numbers 1-13 — so positions below follow this site's standard pre-1966 numbering convention (1 FB, 2/5 wing, 3/4 centre, 6 stand-off, 7 scrum-half, 8/10 prop, 9 hooker, 11/12 second-row, 13 loose forward), the same convention already applied to this season's neighbours in this file. Halifax's coach could not be confirmed from any source and is omitted. This was a pre-substitute-era final, so no interchange field applies.
Alan Prescott (St Helens, prop forward) — Lance Todd Trophy
Match report
This was St Helens' first Challenge Cup final win in five final appearances, a breakthrough after a run of near-misses at Wembley. Prescott, the St Helens prop, was named Lance Todd Trophy winner. Halifax were held to a single goal and never seriously threatened the Saints. The victory triggered wild celebrations back on Merseyside: the team's open-top bus tour from Liverpool to St Helens reportedly drew around 100,000 well-wishers despite pouring rain. For much of the competition's early history the final rotated around northern club and representative grounds such as Headingley, Fartown, Central Park and the Athletic Ground, Rochdale, before Wembley Stadium became the final's permanent home from 1928/29 onward (with a short break during Wembley's 2000-2007 reconstruction, when finals were staged at Murrayfield, Twickenham and the Millennium Stadium instead). Since 1946/47, the competition's individual award, the Lance Todd Trophy, has been presented to the final's outstanding player, voted for by a panel of media representatives at the final whistle — on several notable occasions the trophy has gone to a player on the losing side, an unusual honour that reflects the award's focus on individual performance rather than simply reflecting the final scoreline. This was the 55th Challenge Cup final played, and, under the name “St Helens,” the 1st Challenge Cup title for the club. The result is recorded in this site's full results table alongside every other Challenge Cup final played since the competition's 1896/97 inception, cross-referenced against the venue and attendance figures gathered for that table. As with all of this site's rugby league match reports, any statistic that couldn't be confirmed from an accessible source — a scorer's name, an exact minute, a goal-kicking split — has been left out entirely rather than estimated, in line with the sourcing standard applied across the Challenge Cup, World Cup, World Club Challenge and domestic finals coverage on this site.
Early rounds feature amateur and community clubs alongside professional ones; team names are linked only where this site has a team page for that exact club, matching the same safety-first approach used for the Final's own results table.
We use cookies for analytics and, in future, to serve relevant advertising that keeps this site free and lets us keep building out full historical depth for every sport. You can accept or decline non-essential cookies.