Club Championship 1973/74

Summary
Results
Rounds
Data

Final

Warrington 13 def. St Helens 12

Info On Record

Champions: Warrington Wolves
No. Of Teams: 24
No. Of Games: 34
No. Of Players: 0

This competition coincides with the re-introduction of two divisions. The teams which finished on top of each table at the end of the normal season were considered league champions.

Administrators opted to allow 12 of the 14 Second Division league teams to battle it out for a chance to progress through to the Round of 16, the point at which they were joined by First Division sides and it became a knockout cup-style competition.

The two teams from the Second Division that failed to make it were Doncaster and Huyton. The draw for the qualifying matches were chosen based on their league position:

1. Bradford vs. 12. Blackpool
2. York vs. 11. New Hunslet
3. Keighley vs. 10. Huddersfield
4. Halifax vs. 9. Barrow
5. Workington vs. 8. Batley
6. Hull vs. 7. Swinton

Each team played each other twice, home and away, and their aggregate points across the two games were used to determine the overall winner:

Bradford 103 (61, 42) def. Blackpool 29 (19, 10).
York 40 (13, 27) def. New Hunslet 19 (17, 2).
Keighley 31 (8, 23) def. Huddersfield 25 (12, 13).
Halifax 33 (25, 8) def. Barrow 10 (8, 2).
Hull 36 (12, 24) def. Swinton 22 (8, 14).
Batley 33 (9, 24) def. Workington 29 (25, 4).

The only top 6 side to be defeated in the first round was Workington Town. Following this, the 6 successful teams played each other again over two legs:

Bradford 61 (35, 26) def. Batley 20 (15, 5).
Keighley 15 (13, 2) def. Halifax 9 (5, 4).
Hull FC 51 (42, 9) def. York 35 (6, 29).

This resulted in Bradford Northern, Keighley and Hull FC qualifying from Second Division for the knockout stage of the competition. At this point, they were joined by the top 12 teams from First Division based on league position. The four teams which didn't make the cut were Oldham, Hull Kingston Rovers, Leigh and Whitehaven.

Unusually, these 15 teams were joined at this stage of the competition by Workington Town, presumably by virtue of them being the highest ranked Second Division that was knocked out in the first round of qualifiers.

From this round of 16, the competition proceeded as a knockout tournament. The draw appears to be random and not based on any previous position or qualification pathway of any of the teams.