League One News
The league features a good mix of historic clubs from the heartlands, expansion clubs and new start ups but the league hasn’t also struggled for consistency over the last few decades as clubs come and go.
The league has also enjoy an internal flair to it recently with clubs from France, Wales, England and Canada all competing in it.
As the bottom tier of professional Rugby League, there is no relegation from the league but all of the clubs do battle it out for promotion to the Championship- just one level below the Super League.
League One Breaking News
If you are looking for the latest League One breaking news, you are in the right place as we bring you all of the latest news from sources around the world.
League One Latest News Today
If a news story has broken today regarding even the league as a whole or for one of the clubs playing in the competition, we will bring it to you straight away and best of all, we will also bring you all of the latest updates as and when they happen.
Governing Body
The league comes under the control of the Rugby Football League governing body.
About
The RFL League One was established in 2003 but ever since then, the league has continued to struggle to truly establish itself as a successful competition.
Clubs have come and gone and as tends to be the case with the majority of bottom tier, every club that plays in the league is trying to get out of it.
That, and the relatively small stature of the clubs in it, has left it often go overlooked by not just national media but also by local media and even by some industry media outlets.
Thankfully, there is now an easy way to keep up with all things RFL League 1 and that is right here on this very page.
History
Although the current League One was established in 2003, third tier Rugby League in the country has a much longer history going back to 1991.
The current iteration can be traced back to 2003 when the then 2nd tier, the Northern Ford Premiership, was split into two sperate division called the National League One and National League Two.
Back then, the top 10 teams in the 2nd tier joined the NL One and the bottom 8 teams were joined by the London Skolars and the York (City) Knights to create a third tier of 10 teams.
The inaugural winners of the competition back in 2003 were the Keighley Cougars whilst Halifax became the first club to be promoted despite not winning the league in 2004.
In 2005, the league was expanded to 11 teams due to the Catalans Dragons joining the Super League in a season that also saw the Blackpool Panthers replace the defunct Chorley Lynx.
By 2006, that number had increased once again to an even 12 teams with the admittance of the Celtic Crusaders team from Wales.
In 2007, the Celtic Crusaders, based in south Wales, became the first non-English club to win the league and to gain promotion to the second tier. That same year saw the Blackpool Panthers set an unwanted record of finishing the season in last place for the third consecutive season.
In 2009, the topflight was once again expanded and that led to 2 extra teams been promoted from the then National League One, which in turn saw 2 extra teams promoted from the third tier.
That change also saw the third division drop to 10 teams and both the 2nd and 3rd tiers rebranded to the Championship and Championship 1.
The season was a positive one for the Dewsbury Rams however as they became the first club to win the new third tier on 2 separate occasions.
The South Wales Scorpions joined the third tier for the 2010 season to increased numbers to 11 but the Blackpool Panthers dropped out just a year later to reduce things back down to 10 clubs.
In 2013, the league admitted 3 new teams from expansion areas with the Hemel Stags, Gloucestershire All Golds and Oxford Rugby League all joining.
That saw 4 teams promoted to the Championship and no teams relegated, which left the bottom tier with just 9 clubs.
The next restructure happened in time for the 2015 season when 5 teams joined the league from the Championship and the Coventry Bears were admitted into the league to create a new division of 14 teams.
A new play-off structure was added that saw the league leaders automatically promoted and the team that finished 2nd in the table would go on to face the 2nd bottom of the Championship, with the winner taking their place in the top flight and the losing joining the third tier.
In 2016, Toulouse Olympique became the first French club to join the league before the international nature of the league expanded across the Atlantic with the admittance of the Toronto Wolfpack in 2017.
The 2016 also saw the Super 8’s format used by the league in which clubs played each other home and away before splitting into 2 groups of 8, determined by their league position, where they would play each other once more, with the top 8 sides super 8’s acting as the play-offs for promotion.
It was Rochdale who won the first version of this format, with Toulouse also gaining promotion.
In 2017, the Toronto Wolfpack became the first non-British and first North American club to win a league in the British structure.
The format got off to an unfortunate start as both Oxford Rugby League and the Gloucestershire All Golds dropped out in 2018.
Things were tweaked to a top 6/bottom 6 split but the Hemel Stags announced there departure for the 2019 season.
The super 8’s ended with the league leaders once again been the team to be promoted although Newcastle Thunder were granted promotion in 2020 leaving the league with 10 clubs before Cornwall RLFC joining in 2022.
The league lost another club on the eve of the 2023 season when the West Wales Raiders announced their departure, something which came on the back of 4 straight bottom place finishes.
RFL League One News Headlines
If you are looking for the latest RLF League One news headlines, you are in the right place as we bring you all of the latest headlines from news sources around the world.
RFL League 1 News Update
When a news story breaks, there is now a rush to be the first to publish and that often leaves readers only getting part of the story before having to search once again for the full story.
That is no longer the case as we constantly update stories as and when an outlet does, so you can get all of the latest up to date news headlines from across the globe.
