Hunslet
Real club history, honours, and Grand Final appearances, sourced and cross-checked.
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
Hunslet — 2 Super League/British top-flight titles on record (most recently 1937-38).
Club Background
Hunslet Rugby League Football Club traces its rugby roots to 1883 in the Hunslet district of Leeds, becoming a founding member of the breakaway Northern Union in 1895. The original club won the Championship and Challenge Cup 'All Four Cups' double in 1907-08, a second Championship in 1937-38, and the Challenge Cup again in 1933-34 (beating Widnes at Wembley), before folding in 1973 after losing its Parkside ground. A phoenix club was formed the same year and, after spells at several temporary grounds, returned to south Leeds in 1995 with the opening of the South Leeds Stadium, its current home. Known as Hunslet Hawks from 1995 to 2016, the club reverted to plain Hunslet R.L.F.C. and now competes in the Betfred Championship.
Grand Final / Championship Final appearances (1907-08-1958-59)
| Season | Result | Opponent | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1907-08 | Won | Oldham | 12-2 (replay, after a 7-7 draw) |
| 1937-38 | Won | Leeds | 8-2 |
| 1958-59 | Runner-up | St Helens | 44-22 |
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
Hunslet's rugby history began in May 1883, when Hunslet Cricket Club funded the merger of local sides Albion and Excelsior; the new club played its first match that October and moved to a purpose-bought ground, Parkside, in 1888. Hunslet joined the Northern Union split from rugby union in 1895 and became one of the code's dominant early-twentieth-century sides, capped by the famous 1907-08 season in which they won all four trophies available (Yorkshire Cup, Yorkshire League, Challenge Cup and the Championship), beating Oldham 12-2 in a replayed Championship final. A second Challenge Cup followed in 1933-34, when Hunslet beat Widnes at Wembley in their 50th-anniversary year, and a second Championship title came in 1937-38 with victory over Leeds at Elland Road.
The post-war decades were leaner, though Fred Ward's side reached the 1965 Challenge Cup final. A collapse in playing fortunes and finances followed, and after Parkside was sold for redevelopment in 1972, the original Hunslet club wound itself up in July 1973. A reformed 'phoenix' club survived by ground-sharing at venues including Elland Road and Bramley, before finally returning to south Leeds on 19 November 1995 with the opening of the new South Leeds Stadium, playing under the name Hunslet Hawks. That team won promotion in 1997 and the 1999 Northern Ford Premiership Grand Final, though the club was not admitted to Super League, triggering a period of financial hardship.
Stability returned from 2007 under new backing, and the club won Championship 1 in 2010 to reach the second tier, and after relegation in 2013 bounced back by winning the Championship One Grand Final against Oldham in 2014. The club dropped the 'Hawks' name and hawk crest at the end of 2016, rebranding as simply Hunslet R.L.F.C. with its historic Rampant Lion badge. More recently, Hunslet won the League 1 Shield in 2017 and beat Swinton in the League 1 promotion play-off in October 2024 to return to the Championship, where they play in 2026 following the RFL's merger of the Championship and League 1 into a single second-tier competition. The club remains based at the South Leeds Stadium in the John Charles Centre for Sport.
Sourcing caveat: Sources differ on the club's founding year — the official club treats itself as continuous from 1883, while Wikipedia lists the current legal entity as founded in 1973 after the original club's dissolution — and no sourced capacity, total games hosted, or record attendance figure for the South Leeds Stadium was found.
Sources
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