Rugby by rail: the romance (and regret) of going to games by train

The Guardian

14-05-2025

Like the more adventurous of you, I've reached matches via bus, tube, ferry, plane, train and, mainly, automobile. You might also have gone by tram or bike. But when ill health stopped me from driving to rugby for several years, I embraced the horseless carriage to get to St Helens, Newcastle, Coventry, Leeds, London Broncos and more. The train certainly took the strain.
A sport that was born before cars and buses needed the Victorian railway routes that allowed teams and their supporters to leave their locale and establish a national competition. The railways begat professional rugby league as we know it.
When cars were a luxury, excursion specials were all the rage, taking thousands of fans to big away games. For Featherstone's ATV Floodlit Trophy tie against Oldham at QPR in 1955, a special left Wakefield before 8pm, returning from Kings Cross at 10.45pm and arriving at Westgate at nearly 3am. What an adventure.
Back then, even the grounds were closer to stations: Swinton's was virtually in one, and the track cut a corner off the Wilderspool ground where a fence prevented passengers from watching a few seconds of Warrington for free. Those days have long gone – lines and stations have closed, stadiums have moved – and it's been a decade since you could catch a few seconds of Super League action from your carriage (Jubilee Line tube trains slowing on the approach to Canons Park station).
Railways still connect many of our clubs. Warrington is three stops from Widnes; Halifax to Bradford, Leeds to Castleford, and Wakefield and Featherstone are just two stops apart. The quickest train trip between league towns? Batley to Dewsbury: one stop, three minutes.
Some clubs are more suited to rail travel than others. A smattering – such as Featherstone and Workington – are almost adjacent to stations, and the vast majority are within a 20-minute stroll. Only Salford, Hull KR, Catalans and Leigh – a town without a station since Beeching closed it in 1969 – are far enough away to discourage taking the train even before you check out the cost and times.
Take this week, for example. Few fans attending the Challenge Cup semi-finals would have considered going by rail given both stadiums – Doncaster and York – are a cab or bus ride out of town. But getting to the games on National Train Day at Batley, Halifax, Widnes, Keighley and Whitehaven were a sinch by rail. There's just one train an hour heading out of St Helens after Thursday night's game with Catalans. At least the Royal Alfred pub opposite St Helens Central station is considerate enough to put a miniature departures board at one end of the bar, punters suddenly supping up and grabbing their coat as their train pulls in.
And don't be surprised if you notice what Somerset Maugham called train fever sweeping through Headingley on Friday night as the referee goes to the screen for the umpteenth time. That will be Hull FC fans checking their watches as they worry about catching the last train home.
A mate of mine rarely bothers to check how he's going to get home from a night out. He just crosses that bridge when he comes to it. Heaven help him if he ever goes by train to a night match at Warrington or Castleford. You can get from the Halliwell Jones to Manchester pretty smoothly, but anywhere else is a gamble, and only a couple of away contingents could hotfoot it up Wheldon Road in time for a last train home.
Avoiding Friday afternoon motorways and letting the train take you to a game can be bliss. For Wigan's two early season Friday night trips to Hull, I didn't fancy a six-hour round day trip. But, with the first train home at 5am – for me and the Wigan fans – Hull's hotels were the beneficiaries. At least for their third visit east last month, Wiganers could enjoy a Sunday afternoon outing. They'll still have cursed developers failing to build a stop at MKM Stadium, every train passing within a hundred yards of the turnstiles en route to Hull Paragon, leaving exasperated passengers a half-hour trudge back to the ground.
Sundays can also be blighted by engineering works. I abandoned a planned trip to Huddersfield due to the dreaded Rail Replacement Service, picturing a Heartbeat-style charabanc crawling through Pennine villages as kick-off approached.
With all but two English professional clubs on their giant network, it's no surprise Northern are long-term sponsors of Super League. Rather than crawling through Friday night or Sunday lunchtime traffic, some fans take a Northern service from the countryside to the stadium. You could be rowing on the river at Knaresborough and be at Leeds Rhinos an hour later; or walk along beautiful Baugh Fell and leave Garsdale station on a Sunday lunchtime, cross majestic Ribblehead Viaduct and stroll into Keighley's Cougar Park in time for kick-off. Head out of Cumbria in the other direction, you can tootle across Morecambe Bay from Arnside to Barrow in 45 minutes; or swim in Lake Windermere at lunchtime and be watching a game at Wigan 90 minutes later.
Train travel is not always that romantic. There's little to cherish sitting on a packed teatime commuter service chugging through suburban stops like an exhausted prop making his way to a scrum. But leaping on to your homebound train as it's about to leave after an exciting match can be exhilarating, sitting back with a warm glow as you leaf through the match programme.
On the route from Doncaster to Hull, you pass the lush fishing lakes at Thorne as you head across the East Riding floodplains, squeeze between the spectacularly grand Water Tower and Goole Vikings' Victorian Pleasure Ground before passing under the spectacular Humber Bridge. One trip a brutal North Sea was battering the banks, the next the sun was glistening off the estuary as latte-coloured waves lapped the trackside.
Watching Belle Vue's pylons disappear out of sight as your train accelerates through the rhubarb triangle's purple fields while the sun sets after a late spring day at the rugby is hard to beat. But a train trip to London Broncos is special, too. Escaping the concrete bowels of St Pancras, you cut through the heart of the capital and pause at Blackfriars, where the glass-walled platforms conveniently enable a glorious view down the Thames, children playing on the South Bank beach, clippers ferrying tourists down the river.
But beware. The uninitiated can very easily get off at the wrong station, wondering why there's no one else wearing replica jerseys. For Broncos' games at Wimbledon you board a Wimbledon-bound train but get off at Haydons Road. Leeds fans alight at Burley Park rather than Headingley; the nearest station to Belle Vue is Sandal & Agbrigg, not Wakefield Westgate or Kirkgate; for the Rec Ground you hop off at Corkickle not Whitehaven; and for Swinton Lions games at Sale you get off the Metrolink not at Sale but Brooklands.
And if you're crossing the Pennines, make sure you check out the driver: it might just be former Super League star Jimmy Keinhorst, currently learning the ropes.
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