The Rugby League Record Keepers’ Club will, on Saturday 2 April 2022, release a comprehensive record of the British domestic game covering the entire summer era.
The RKC will, In addition, provide full match and player details for the national teams of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and France, which will be freely available to the public on their website www.rugbyleaguerecords.com.
The release coincides with the second anniversary of the RKC’s re-launch. During the past two years the work of the original RKC, which operated between 1972 and 1994, has been built on, brought up to date, and modernised for sharing in the digital era.
Led by Neil Ormston, leading statisticians and historians from across the UK and beyond have been compiling, cross-referencing and checking the team line-ups and scorers from all tiers and competitions of the professional game since 1996. Building on records primarily provided by Chris Heinitz, a comprehensive database has been built by Martin McDonough, and Chris Lines has designed the website to showcase the stats.
Experts from professional clubs throughout the UK and France, together with volunteers from across the sport, have verified the details and investigated discrepancies, leading to not just the first comprehensive picture of the British game to be made available online, but also one which will be the benchmark as an accurate, reliable source of information.
Over 16,000 matches and 8,000 players are covered in the initial release. The international records included are the first to be aligned to International Rugby League’s (IRL) officially recognised international matches; earlier this year a partnership between IRL and the RKC was announced which saw the RKC become the official statistics provider to IRL.
The information is the first of several data releases that are planned over the coming years, which will ultimately create a full picture of the game since 1895; whilst data relating to the domestic pre-summer era will take some time to get in order before publication, the full international picture will be completed ahead of the World Cup later this year. All will be available free of charge on the RKC website.
All work has been undertaken voluntarily by members of the RKC, with many providing not just their time and expertise but also their own club records which they have previously worked on. Whilst the summer era data will be available to everyone, now that is has been completed and verified, members also have access to the archive of the original RKC covering all matches from 1895 and will be able to input into the completion of the records covering this period ahead of their public release. Membership costs just £5 per annum and contributes towards the running of the club’s activities; details of how to join are available on the RKC website.
More details of the specific information included in the release will be made available prior to the launch, with further updates provided at www.rugbyleaguerecords.com, on the club’s Facebook page (search Rugby League Record Keepers’ Club) and Twitter account (@RL_RKC), or for an-y other queries contact neil.ormston@gmail.com.
Martin Stewart works closely with the Record Keepers Club in compiling Hunslet’s statistics. He He said: “The RKC website will be a fantastic tool for historians, stattos, journalists, researchers and fans. Initially, all the match and players stats from 1996, updated weekly, mean no more wading back through the yearbooks for details on the new player your club has just signed. It will all be there online for the first time – with plans for much more info in the coming months!”
