Rochdale Hornets News

The Rochdale Hornets are a professional rugby league club based in the Greater Manchester town of Rochdale.

The club are one of the oldest in the world and one of the most historic as they were one of the original 22 breakaway clubs that formed the new Northern Union code, the sport that would go onto to become rugby league.

As a club based in the sports heartlands, it will be no surprise that they have produced many of the biggest stars to grace a rugby league pitch, but things have been tougher for them over the last few decades.

Despite all of that, it can be a hugely frustrating for fans to keep up to date with all the news regarding the club.

Rochdale Hornets Breaking News

Thankfully, there is now a straightforward way to do just that and that is by using our news service on this very page.

Rochdale Hornets Latest News Today

If a news story has broken today regarding the club, we will bring you all the headlines on this page.

Stadium

The club have had two grounds down the years that they have called ‘home’, starting with the Athletics Ground before moving to Spotland Stadium.

The club moved to the Athletics Grounds in 1894, when they shared it with other clubs, before purchasing the ground outright in 1913.

In the 1980’s, the club fell into financial problems and after selling the Athletics Grounds, they invested in the towns football ground in the Spotland suburb.

The Spotland Stadium has a capacity of just over 10,000, spread across 4 stands and it has been the club’s home since 1988.

Location

The club are located in the Greater Manchester town of Rochdale, which used to be in Lancashire and therefore puts the club right in the middle of the sports heartlands.

About

As one of the oldest clubs in the sport, it is no surprise that the club have developed a number of rivalry with other clubs, especially those also based in and around the Pennines or Greater Manchester, with their main rivals been near neighbours Oldham, the Swinton Lions, the Huddersfield Giants, the Salford Red Devils and Halifax.

The club’s colours are blue, red and white, with their playing kit been predominately blue with red and white hoops.

History

The club’s history is a long and fascinating one that started life way back in 1866, when the Rochdale Athletic Club were formed and held a festival of sport on the town’s main cricket field.

Soon after, the first rugby match took place and the Rochdale Football Club was established and a few other rugby clubs were established in the town, including the Rochdale Wasps and the Rochdale Juniors, to give the new club some local opposition.

In 1871, Rochdale Juniors and the Rakebank club merged to form Rochdale United, before another meeting took place between the directors of the Rochdale Wasps, Rochdale United and Rochdale Football Club and the decision was made to merge the club to create a senior side to represent the town.

The new club would take on the name of the Rochdale Hornets and there colours would be amber and black.

In 1875, the club moved to the Athletic Grounds and then to the Rochdale Crocket Ground before moving around the districts before moving to their historic home ground at the Athletic Grounds when it opened in 1894.

There first game at that ground was against Crompton in September 1894 and a year later, the club would become one of the original breakaway teams of the Northern Union.

The turn of the century saw financial problems for the club and in March 1902, the players went on strike after they didn’t get paid but by the second decade of the century, things were on the up for Rochdale as the Hornets enjoyed success on the Lancashire County Cup.

In 1921, the Law Cup was first established when the then known as Infirmaries Cup was contested against Oldham. That same year saw the club change their colours to red, white and blue for the first time.

The 1930’s was a difficult period for the club as they once again were hit with financial problems, which led to them transfer listing all of their players and putting their stadium up for sale and things became even worse when there main stand burnt down.

The post-war era started with the club enlisting the help of supporters to renovate the Athletics Ground and after a steady 1950’s that saw the club enjoy some strong cup runs, they showed themselves to be a forward-thinking club in the 1960’s when they brought in a host of Fijian stars including Orisi Dawai, Apisai Toga and Josefa Levula.

That set them up for a decent 7’s but by the 1980’s, the club were back in financial difficulties and by the end of the decade, they would be forced into selling their home ground and moving into the towns football ground, Spotland Stadium.

The 1990’s started well as the club made it to the final of the 1991 Lancashire Cup but during the decade of change in the sport, the club struggled at the start of the new summer era of rugby league.

The club would struggle along in the sport’s lower divisions, but one high spot of the summer era did come in 2005, when they set a record score in the Challenge Cup when they defeated amateur side Illingworth 120 points to 4.

The first decade of the new millennium saw the club once again struggle for money and in 2009, they were put into administration before a co-operative formed by supporters of the club took them over.

Soon after, the club enjoyed their most successful season for some time when they made the 2010 play-offs.

In 2013, the club enjoyed their first piece of silverware of the summer era when they won the Championship 1 play-off final by defeating their arch-rivals Oldham.

They were soon relegated but in 2016, Rochdale picked up their first title win in 97 years when they defeated Toulouse to become the third-tier champions.

Whilst the club would survive in the second tier for a couple of seasons, it didn’t take long for them to be relegated once more and the limitations of the clubs co-operative ownership was hitting home.

That led to the Rochdale chairmen looking for new investment and in 2020, the club were taken over and once again were in private ownership.

Rochdale RLFC News Headlines

Here at 13v13, we bring you all the latest Rochdale Hornets news headlines from news sources around the world.

Rochdale RL News Update

In this day and age, the news industry is all about been the first to publish and not about accuracy, which leads to most stories needing to be updated when they are published.

When the headlines do change, we will bring them to you on this very page to save you searching for the latest news updates regarding the club.