Challenge Cup – article
The 1928–29 Challenge Cup was the 29th staging of rugby league’s oldest knockout competition, the Challenge Cup. The final was contested by Wigan and Dewsbury, staged, for the first time at Wembley Stadium in London. The final was played on Saturday 4 May 1929, where Wigan beat Dewsbury 13–2 in front of a crowd of 41,500.
Extract from Road To Wembley • GoDewsbury
The defiant young men from Crown Flatt took on the full might of the strongest and most prosperous team in the league — Wigan — in front of 40.000 spectators.
It was the eternal War of the Roses all over again hut it was the warriors from Wigan who were destined to take home the spoils of war — the coveted Challenge Cup Trophy.
Unfortunately, Dewsbury failed to play anything like as well as in previous rounds and the final score was a disappointing 13-2.
But Dewsbury were good losers and it was nearly half a century before one of the players, winger Henry Coates, revealed that the score could have been very different If It had not been for a last minute change to their usual style of play.
Henry Coates, one of the smallest and fastest wingers in the game, recalled the disastrous dressing- room “pep-talk” by the Crown Flatt committee which virtually ensured their defeat.
“It was the first time Rugby League had been played down south and the officials wanted to impress with exhibition football,” said Henry’, who played with Dewsbury for ten years.
“Just before going on to the pitch the Dewsbury committee told us we had to play exhibition football, something we weren’t used to ”
The players were also devastated when told they were only being paid a straight £5 — win. draw or lose. No bonuses and no incentives. They had received £11 for winning in the semi-finals and were expecting at least £20.
“That really knocked the wind out of our sails,” said Henry. As we all said at the time we could have got more If we’d gone out and played with the band”.
The team tried to compromise and asked £20 for a win and nothing if they lost. But the committee refused.
The Dewsbury players acknowledged that Wigan, who were used to playing open football, had played better football and deserved to win.
But the Dewsbury team always believed the game could have gone bettor if their morale had not been so badly shaken by the sudden change in tactics. They had warned to play the football they were used to head-down tactics and not open football as the committee had ordered.
Henry, who had dropped a goal in one of the early rounds which had ensured Dewsbury’s trip to Wembley, said playing at Wembley had been for all of them one of the greatest and proudest experiences of their lives. He said the elation they felt as they stood on the pitch listening to the Band of His Majesty’s Welsh Guards play the National Anthem, was Impossible to describe. “We just felt up in the air somewhere.”