Bedford Tigers enjoyed their first ever win in the Challenge Cup on Sunday. Photograph: Gavin Willacy

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Bedford Tigers enjoyed their first ever win in the Challenge Cup on Sunday. Photograph: Gavin WillacyGuardian Sport NetworkChallenge CupThe joy of watching amateur clubs in the first round of the Challenge Cup

Community clubs were front and centre this weekend, with games from Bedford to Banbridge and beyond

By No Helmets Required

On a gloomy and bitingly cold January afternoon, it was a sight typical of many grassroots rugby league clubs. Midway between the M1 and the A1, a few hundred spectators bustled through the busy clubhouse to gather around the pitch. There was a bloke in a Wakefield away shirt, another in a Hull FC coat and someone wore a Castleford hat. The home coach was a Cas lad; the visitors’ delegation was led by a Warringtonian. There were folk sporting their allegiances to Salford, St Helens, Hull KR and Wigan too.

Muddy kids in rugby kit chatted excitedly. One boy asked his mate what all the fuss was about. “It’s the Challenge Cup. It’s like the FA Cup,” said his friend. I heard another explain the difference between union and league – “there’s no lineouts or mauls and they don’t have proper scrums” – which was a reminder we were in Bedford, not Bradford.

Thanks to a 3G pitch, the first-round meeting between Bedford Tigers and Medway Dragons on Sunday survived the weather that forced many ties to be postponed. With 34 “Community clubs” playing off before the winners face a Championship club in the second round (and Super League sides in the third) there were matches up and down the country, from Thatto Heath Crusaders beating Seaton Rangers 78-10 in St Helens to Hammersmith Hills Hoists winning 18-4 against the Royal Navy in Portsmouth.

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Bedford Tigers hosted Medway Dragons in the first round of the Challenge Cup. Photograph: Gavin Willacy

It was a big day for Bedford. They had never hosted a Challenge Cup match before and this was their first victory in the competition. It did not come easily, with sixth-tier Medway putting up a brave fight in front of more than 250 fans at Putnoe Woods. Medway camped in Bedford’s end throughout the second half, only to fall to repeated suckerpunch breakaways.

“To help this club win their first game in the Challenge Cup and to do it in Bedford is extra special for me,” said the prop Santino Decaro, a former Italy international who made his only other Challenge Cup appearance nine years ago for Hemel Stags. “We looked up at the sideline and saw how many people were here – they were queueing to get in. It’s brilliant to spread rugby league down here and to really push it home that we’re ambitious as a club. We want to go pro and we have all the infrastructure and the capabilities to do that. After seven years out I never thought I’d play league again, but I turned up to train and just the attitude, the energy, of everyone around the club was fantastic. I’ve fallen back in love with it again.”

The occasion was almost perfect: the Tigers wore special Challenge Cup jerseys, published a colour programme and sold pies that will be hard to beat anywhere in the country. All that was missing was spectator cover and a PA system – and for the sponsor’s beer to not run out before half-time.

These kinds of matches are relatively recent. It wasn’t until the 1990s that rugby league enthusiasts outside the code’s heartlands were given Challenge Cup opportunities. For most of the 20th century, only a couple of amateur clubs were invited. There were a few giantkillings but many more hammerings. Imagine the stick doled out to Orford Tannery players when they returned to work after being thrashed 92-10 over two legs by local heroes Warrington in the early 1950s (when it was still three points for a try), especially as many of them would have been Wire fans.

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The scene at the bar at Bedford. Photograph: Gavin Willacy

A trail of now-mysterious names have appeared in the Challenge Cup’s early rounds: the works teams Triangle Valve, British Oil & Cake Mills, National Dock Labour Board, Manchester Ship Canal and Beecroft & Wightman – a timber merchants in Bradford, apparently; pub outfits such as Westfield Hotel from Workington; and Twelve Apostles, whose roots lie in a Leigh church.

Most evocative of all were Uno’s Dabs, named after the lottery tickets offered by the bookmaking brothers who launched the team in St Helens. Some clubs were not what they seemed: Barnsley United were from Hull; Cambridge Street from Barrow; and Thames Board Mills were based in Warrington not Purfleet.

In 1993 the Rugby Football League fully embraced the creeping spread of the game nationally, inviting 64 amateur clubs to kick off the first round. Fulham Travellers travelled to Dewsbury Celtic and there were debuts for London Colonials, Hemel Hempstead, Nottingham, Cambridge City and the students of Cardiff Institute, alongside more long lost names: Bisons, Ace and Eureka.

Amateur clubs had to win three games before meeting a first division team – a tough task but West Hull reached the fifth round in 1996 – until the RFL rejigged the format last year. That backfired when Wests Warriors were drawn against the mighty Leeds Rhinos. The match was moved from Acton to Headingley, where there were about 10 spectators for every point scored as the Southern Conference champions were flogged 92-0.

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The Challenge Cup gives amateur players the opportunity to make precious memories, whether they tumble out at the first hurdle or enjoy a little run before being poleaxed by professionals. Helping out at St Albans Centurions 20 years ago, I drove the team minibus to the outskirts of Bradford for a tie against Birkenshaw. I had to crouch behind a hedge to shelter from a storm while phoning live updates to our local radio station and remember the steamy windows of a hospitable local pub where pie, peas and ale provided welcome cheer after a 22-10 defeat. Our antipodean contingent had no idea where we were, or what they were doing there, but they were excited to tell friends back home that they had played in the famous Challenge Cup.

When the amateur game was split between those playing in summer and the traditional winter leagues, clubs in expansionist areas were at a huge disadvantage as cup ties came in the middle of their off-season. But no one enters expecting to get far: they just want to play. It was 31 years ago but Northampton Knights players will surely still remember their expedition to the edge of the Furness peninsula where they were humbled 62-4 by Millom. And all involved with Brighouse or Caslteford Lock Lane will relish their upcoming tie against treble-winners Hull KR.

There was a time when early Challenge Cup rounds could take amateur teams on high-spirited adventures to southern France and clubs could even host visitors from Russia or Serbia. Red Star Belgrade playing at Millom, one of the world’s oldest rugby clubs, remains a gorgeous Challenge Cup curio. But the only flights required this week were from Bristol to Dublin. The Welsh club Aberavon Fighting Irish set off at 4am to face Banbridge Broncos, the All-Ireland champions, in what was the match of the round. Aberavon won 32-26, the first victory by an amateur Welsh club in Challenge Cup history. Their reward is a trip to Midlands Hurricanes later this month.

The draw for the second round has thrown up a few intriguing fixtures. Hammersmith Hills Hoists host Salford, with a home tie against Hull FC up for grabs in the third round. As for Bedford Tigers, if they beat North Wales Crusaders in the second round they will be rewarded with a home tie against Leigh Leopards at Putnoe Woods. Now those would be days to remember.

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