Sporting programmes Part 1: Rugby

Two of the ten shelves holding our official sporting
programmes, together with customized boxes

Closure week in November 2015 gave us the chance to re-box and move our official sports programmes in to one series, making them easier to retrieve for public viewing. 

It also gave us the opportunity to take stock and review our holdings, especially on the back of the success of our Rugby League exhibition in 2013 during which we received donations of match programmes for both Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers.

Although not complete our official sporting programmes give an insight in to a clubs history. Useful if you are researching a club at given point in history or a particular game. You may, however, simply wish to reminisce. 

Unsurprisingly, a large part of the collection is made up of rugby league programmes. Programmes for Hull FC [L DSHFC] and Hull Kingston Rovers [L DSKR] date from 1960 onwards. The 1980’s were arguably Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers most successful period, when between them, they won the 1982/83, 1983/84 and 1984/85 championships, and not forgetting the 1980 Challenge Cup Final at Wembley. The decline of both clubs during the 1990s is also covered, including the ill-fated Hull Sharks venture and Hull KR’s relegation to Division Three, before revival and the Super League era.

Selection of programmes for Hull Kingston Rovers & Hull FC
covering the 1980s [Ref L DSKR & L DSHFC]

It’s not just Hull’s professional rugby league clubs that feature among our rugby programmes. Being a rugby town, a small number of local amateur clubs feature. However, these are less in number, mainly because fewer were produced compared with professional clubs. Among the collection is East Hull RUFC with two programmes for the 1965-66 & 1966/67 seasons. However, it is rugby league programmes that feature more prominently among the collection. A small number of programmes are held for Hull Dockers, West Hull, Ideal Isberg, Cottingham Tigers and Hull Phoenix covering the mid-1990s and early 2000s. Although limited in number they do provide a snap shot of amateur rugby league in the city in the last decade of the twentieth and first few years of the twenty first centuries.

A full list of official programmes for Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers can be found on our online catalogue. Other rugby match day programmes will be added to the catalogue soon.

Neil Chadwick
Reader Assistant