Cross Green
Leeds (Otley), West Yorkshire, England
Cross Green, Leeds (Otley), England — opened None, 3 rugby league games hosted, home of Otley, playing briefly as a Northern Union (rugby league) side from around 1900 to 1906 before reverting to rugby union in 1907 -- the club has been a rugby union side ever since, including hosting a 1991 Rugby World Cup fixture at a later-built Cross Green stadium.
Ground facts
| Opened | None (This is genuinely uncertain and disclosed as an open question. Otley RUFC's own club history states its Cross Green ground was purchased and opened in 1921, with the club's home before that being a different ground called Wharfeside -- yet the three rugby league matches recorded here, independently re-confirmed via direct WebFetch for this entry, are dated 1902-1906, fifteen to nineteen years before that documented opening. This suggests either an earlier, undocumented pitch in the same Cross Green district of Otley, or a cataloguing link between two distinct sites of the same name; no source resolves this, so the venue's rugby-league-era opening date is treated as unknown rather than assumed to match the 1921 rugby union ground.) |
| Home club | Otley, playing briefly as a Northern Union (rugby league) side from around 1900 to 1906 before reverting to rugby union in 1907 -- the club has been a rugby union side ever since, including hosting a 1991 Rugby World Cup fixture at a later-built Cross Green stadium |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 3 |
| Top recorded crowd | 0 |
| Capacity | The modern rugby union stadium built on this site name in 1921 held approximately 7,000 (temporarily expanded to 7,500 for the 1991 Rugby World Cup) -- this figure describes the later union-era ground, not necessarily whatever existed during the 1902-1906 rugby league matches |
| Years used | 1902–1906 |
| Location | Leeds (Otley), West Yorkshire |
Name history
Rugby league history
Cross Green, in Otley, West Yorkshire, hosted three early Challenge Cup matches in 1902, 1903 and 1906 during Otley's brief, largely forgotten period playing rugby league under the Northern Union, one of many Yorkshire clubs that switched codes after the 1895 split. Otley reverted to rugby union by 1907 and has remained a union club ever since, eventually building a stadium under the same Cross Green name that today hosts Otley RUFC. Whether the ground used for these three 1902-1906 matches is the same physical site as the later, well-documented 1921 rugby union stadium, or an earlier and separate pitch that happened to share the district name, could not be established from any source and is disclosed as an open question.
Sources
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
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