Hull Kingston Rovers
Real club history, honours, and Grand Final appearances, sourced and cross-checked.
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
Hull Kingston Rovers — 3 Super League/British top-flight titles on record (most recently 2025).
Club Background
Hull Kingston Rovers were formed in 1882 in Hull's Hessle Road area, representing the city's East side (Hull FC represent the West). Long based at Old Craven Park, they moved to a new stadium on the same site in 1989, now known as Sewell Group Craven Park. The club's golden era came under player-coach Roger Millward in the late 1970s/early 1980s: League Championships in 1978-79, 1983-84 and 1984-85, plus a famous 1979-80 Challenge Cup win over rivals Hull FC. After that, major honours dried up for over 40 years until a stunning 2025 season under coach Willie Peters, when Hull KR won the League Leaders' Shield, the Challenge Cup, and the Super League Grand Final — a historic domestic treble and their first Super League title.
Grand Final / Championship Final appearances (1920-21-2025)
| Season | Result | Opponent | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1920-21 | Runner-up | Hull F.C. | 16-14 |
| 1922-23 | Won | Huddersfield | 15-5 |
| 1924-25 | Won | Swinton | 9-5 |
| 1967-68 | Runner-up | Wakefield Trinity | 17-10 |
| 2024 | Runner-up | Wigan Warriors | 9-2 |
| 2025 | Won | Wigan Warriors | 24-6 |
Covers Grand Final/Championship Final appearances only, from our Super League & British Champions list — a fuller historical ladder-position archive for Super League (mirroring what this site already has for the NRL) is planned, direct follow-up work.
Club history
Hull KR trace their roots to 1882, founded by apprentice boilermakers as Kingston Amateurs before adopting the Kingston Rovers name around 1885-86. They did not join the breakaway Northern Union at its 1895 formation, instead playing rugby union first, before switching codes and playing their first Northern Union match in the 1897-98 season. In 1922 the club moved to Old Craven Park; the last match at the old ground was on 9 April 1989, and the club moved into the new Craven Park (today the Sewell Group Craven Park) later that year.
The club's golden age was the Roger Millward era: League Championships in 1978-79, 1983-84 and 1984-85, and a landmark Challenge Cup win in the 1979-80 final — a historic all-Hull Wembley derby against Hull FC, won 10-5 on 3 May 1980 in front of roughly 95,000 fans.
Following that peak, Hull KR went without a major trophy for over four decades. Under coach Willie Peters, the club built into genuine Super League contenders in the early-to-mid 2020s, culminating in an extraordinary 2025 season: they topped the table to win the League Leaders' Shield, won the Challenge Cup (beating Warrington 8-6 on 7 June 2025), and then beat Wigan Warriors 24-6 in the Grand Final at Old Trafford on 11 October 2025 — a domestic treble, the club's first-ever Super League Grand Final title, and the first new Super League champion in 21 years.
Sourcing caveat: Hull KR were not a founding Northern Union member in 1895 — they joined slightly later, playing their first Northern Union match in the 1897-98 season. The exact nature/cause of the 1985-2025 title drought isn't narrated in detail by any source found; club honours records confirm no major trophy in that window, but not a specific explanatory narrative.
Sources
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