I might just be an old romantic with an outdated view, but I love the Challenge Cup. It’s the most important domestic trophy there is to win, in my opinion, and yet there seems to be a feeling of ennui in recent years towards our sports oldest and most venerable competition.

It came to the forefront of my mind at first upon the release of the findings of the ‘strategic review’ earlier this year, which suggested moving the cup final from its spiritual Wembley home, and was driven home further by images shared over the weekend of the paltry home attendance at the Huddersfield Giants vs Hull KR fourth round tie on Saturday. It got me thinking of what might lie in store for the Challenge Cup, and why I think we should do our utmost to uphold its heritage and importance, especially ahead of potential NRL investment over the next few years.

The issue laid out in the review surrounding the final venue, is, for me, a matter of head vs heart. My head understands why the review and the RFL might want to move on from the national stadium. Even when two well-supported sides meet under the arch, the ground is nowhere near sold out. Last season saw a crowd of 63,278 see my beloved Hull KR break their trophy hoodoo. Which is nearly 30,000 short of a sell-out. The largest attendance for the new Wembley was 84,241 for the first final held there in 2007 (Saints beat Catalans 30-8, for anyone wondering). How much of that will come down to the novelty of it being the first final at the new Wembley, though? Well, the numbers certainly support that being the case. Attendance figures haven’t been above 70,000 for ten years¹, and hasn’t topped 80,000 in over fifteen.

With all this being said though, it would be a bitter pill to swallow to see the final played anywhere else, I must admit. Leaving aside the seven years that the stadium was being demolished and rebuilt, and the one-off jaunt to Tottenham’s stadium in 2022, Wembley has hosted the Challenge Cup final for nearly a hundred years. Rugby league is the only sport besides football to have a statue dedicated to it on the stadiums grounds². The bond between the trophy and the stadium runs deep, and at a time when the future of the competition seems precarious, we can ill-afford to devalue it further by taking it away from its historic home. It has been the venue for a plethora of iconic Challenge Cup moments, and, for many, taking it away from Wembley would rip the heart out of the competition.

As a counter-point though, as previously mentioned, the final never comes close to selling out these days, and hiring a stadium like Wembley certainly won’t come cheap, so seeing all those empty seats come the big day will most certainly leave the RFL with a big hole in their wallets. Furthermore, when the final was played at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, not only was the venue seemingly popular with fans but it came closer to selling out the stadium than any final had done for years at Wembley. Granted the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is a smaller ground than Wembley, but selling 51,628 tickets for a 60,000 seat stadium is much better financially than 60,000 for a 90,000 seater, not to mention the visual advantage of the final looking fuller, and therefore more important, on television. The same could be said of the finals at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, most of which sold better than the finals in recent years at Wembley.

It is, like many problems currently facing the game, a tough nut to crack. No matter what decision you end up making, you’re going to annoy someone. I, personally, would be upset if the final were to be moved because I am, as I said, an old romantic at heart, and the prospect of Rovers lifting the Cup at Wembley sounds better to me than the thought of them lifting it at, say, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (and not just because one is significantly easier to type). Having said that, I would begrudgingly understand the reasons behind it, and ultimately, if my team made the final, I would go to watch (listen to) them, wherever that final may be.

I do feel like it is a problem that we as fans are also guilty of causing to some degree though as well. One only has to look at the photo posted by Kyle Amor on X/Twitter of the Huddersfield home attendance to see the problem in living colour. The Giants are a case study in themselves, and a topic for another time, but their fourth round fixture against Hull KR saw them only open one stand to their home support, only for a scant handful of Huddersfield die-hards to show up, dwarfed by the 2,000 that had shown up to support Hull KR for the same game.

Attendance figures for all games across the fourth round aren’t available, but for those that are, they show a significant drop-off for many sides attendances for such a do-or-die occasion. For example, Wigan Warriors, who faced Bradford Bulls, drew a crowd of just 9,997, well below the 16,000 they usually attract at the Brick Community Stadium. Now, you might say: “well, this is a game that most would have expected Wigan to win easily” and to counter this I present the Leigh vs Hull FC tie, which was anticipated to be a close-run affair. 5,535 were on hand to see the Leopards defeat the Black and Whites, a drop of over 3,000 from their previous two home ties this season.

It remains to be seen what the future holds for the Challenge Cup. I haven’t even touched on the supposed investment by the NRL and what they might want to do to our game’s oldest competition. I don’t like to engage in speculation, but I would like to think that the Aussies would see the value in such a historic trophy, and may even have ideas to reinvigorate it, but as they are coming in from a league with no cup competition, and with little to no experience in running anything similar to the Challenge Cup, it’s hard to guess what their views on the topic might be.

I still believe there is magic left in the Challenge Cup. I also still believe that winning the cup underneath the arch is something that every rugby league player in this country aspires to do. One only has to watch the celebrations after the end of last year’s final to know what the trophy means to my club, and the crowd that gathered for the homecoming parade³ the following day showed just how much winning that trophy means to the fans. Think of an iconic moment in rugby league history and chances are good it happened in a Challenge Cup final. The magic still exists, we just need to find it again.

Written by Nathan Major (Site editor & Hull KR fan)

1. There has been one final held at Tottenham’s stadium and one held without a crowd during the pandemic, though. ↩︎
2. The statue depicts RL legends Martin Offiah MBE, Alex Murphy, Eric Ashton, Gus Risman, and Sir Billy Boston. It was unveiled before the 2015 Challenge Cup final. ↩︎
3. In all fairness to our cross-city rivals, they also drew a massive crowd for their homecoming parades in 2016 & 2017. ↩︎