1972 saw Hunslet’s biggest ever home defeat for the original club (6-78) when Halifax were the visitors in a Yorkshire Cup tie. In a bad day for the club the head-line of one paper read “Hunslet Show Lasted 45 Seconds”. In that time Dave Marshall kicked off, Tony Halmshaw gathered, threw out a long pass, Davies and Willicombe made 50 yards and Tudball touched down for the first of 16 tries.  One Hunslet player managed to escape the full 80 minutes of torture – Alan Maskill getting sent off on 35 minutes. Bruce Burton kicked 14 easy goals for a new club record. To make things worse for the long suffering Hunslet fans was the fact that no alcohol was on sale at the game as the Leeds Licensing magistrates had decided not to grant occasional licenses for Sunday events. This was an important decision as this was the time when clubs were increasingly switching to Sunday matches and bar receipts were an important source of revenue. The cricket at Headingley was also affected as the bars closed between 2 and 7 at the Yorkshire Leicestershire game, angering spectators.

The Rugby League Council in 1960 declared a clamp down on scrum offences – a penalty for the first offence, then a warning, a final warning and a sending off for the 4th offence. The RL had been partly responsible for the state of affairs, they had abolished the tap penalty for scrum offences and replaced it with a kick for touch followed by a scrum. Referee Charlie Appleton said that players were standing off-side as they knew they had a good chance of possession at the scrum. He said players were even telling the refs they were off-side! In the Yorkshire Cup tie at Headingley today against Leeds there were 46 scrums, 37 of them leading to penalties. Hunslet hooker Sam Smith was sent off 10 minutes from time and Leeds withdrew Bernard Prior from the front row before he followed him.

Another Yorkshire Cup tie today was in 1955 at Odsal. Hunslet went down 23-27 meaning all three cup ties played today were defeats.

The 1921/22 season opened with a heavy 0-42 defeat at Hull Kingston Rovers. Ironically the Athletic News’ preview of Hunslet tells us that 17 new players had signed on so were expecting to be a much stronger side than last season. 16 players made their debuts as the season progressed but ten of them only made one career appearance. There were some success stories – Arthur Feltham, Moggie Jones, Albert Howarth and Ernest Young all went on to play six seasons or more and make well over 100 appearances.

Albert Howarth

It was a different story in 1932 as the season opened with a comfortable 30-13 home win over Rochdale Hornets. This shouldn’t have been too unexpected as Hunslet had won the Yorkshire League last season.

The reigning Rugby League Champions opened the 1938/39 season with a 10-10 draw with Barrow at Parkside Eric Batten getting a brace of tries.