Right, been having a discussion with a friend of mine and my figuring is that there aren't actually any (geograpically speaking) Lancashire teams in SL now.

My theory is

Leeds - Yorks
Saints - Merseyside????
Cas - Yorks
Hudds - Yorks
Bradford - Yorks
Wigan - Greater Mancs???
Quins - London
Hull KR - Humber
Hull - Humber
Catalans - France
Celtics - Wales
Salford - Greater Mancs???
Wire - Cheshire???
Waki - Yorks

Obviously we see it as being the Yorkshire vs Lancashire thing due to the Pennines but is that right as far as factual geographical location goes?

Hull is either in "Yorkshire and Humberside" or "East Riding of Yorkshire" depending on what you're going on, so they are very much still Yorkshire.

You're spot on with Salford, Wire, Wigan and Saints though, they are what you said.

Co-Operative Teams:

Barrow = Cumbria
Widnes = Cheshire
Sheffield = Yorkshire
Whitehaven = Cumbria
Halifax = Yorkshire
Featherstone = Yorkshire
Toulouse = France
Batley = Yorkshire
Leigh = Greater Manchester
Gateshead = Tyne & Wear
Doncaster = Yorkshire
Dewsbury = Yorkshire
Keighley = Yorkshire
York = Yorkshire
Oldham = Greater Manchester
Blackpool = Lancashire
Hunslet = Yorkshire
Swinton = Greater Manchester
Rochdale = Greater Manchester
Workington = Cumbria
London Skolars = Greater London


There is only Blackpool in Super League or Co-Operative Leagues who are actually in Lancashire.

Yeh, i still take Humberside as East Yorkshire essentially. But thanks for clarifying that one!

"Geographical Location" as you put it is arbitrary lines on maps drawn by government officials. And the bits inside the lines are called...well whatever they wanted to call them.

For instance, in 1974 they created "Metropolitan Counties" including "West Yorkshire", "South Yorkshire", "Greater Manchester" and "Merseyside". Just so happened that the latter two, carved mainly out of Lancashire, were not given Lancashire names in their titles. The could just as easily have called Greater Manchester "South Lancashire minus the bits that did not want to join plus the posh bits they stole from Cheshire to help pay all the bills" and Merseyside "South West Lancashire and a bit of Cheshire that they nicked less the bit that understandably did not want to join the Scousers". Maybe on reflection the names they chose were more manageable...?

For that matter, they invented the detested dog's dinner known as "Humberside" - not a Yorkshire in sight there.

Then of course they messed around with it all again, and indeed (as an example) West Yorkshire County Council was abolished in 1986 IIRC, and the five constituent regions are now unitary authorities. Similar things happened across the Pennines. Indeed, we seem to be almost back to the old County Borough system pre-1974 with these unitary authorities.

I'd not read too much into local authority district names. Stick with the long-standing traditional county boundaries. The ones that stick places like Hull and Middlesborough in Yorkshire, Stockport and Birkenhead in Cheshire, and Barrow Widnes and Warrington in Lancashire. That's my advice anyway!

Yeh, cheers Adey.

I was just saying that 'Technically speaking' there were no Lancashire teams in SL. Saying that, iv grown up with the county lines as are now being only 20!

Every Wiganer i know would say they are from Lancashire and that's the way it should be..

Same goes for people from St Helens too.

Yeah well, as long as they don't claim to be from Yorkshire, that's fine by me

refined slightly

Shuddersfield. South Yorkshire???

Celtic Crusaders should be Glamorgan, I suppose.

thats what i was thinking, when did they pick huddersfield up and move it south? or is classing them as south yorkshire cos of the sheffield half of the club

Monmouthshire or Gwent.

there is no such place as Humberside anymore, its East riding of Yorkshire now and has been for a few years much to the delight of the locals who campaigned for years to get rid of humberside and be Yorkshire again

Whoosh anyone?

And those who campaigned for years to be Lincolnshire again.

Or have I whooshed myself

?

Greater Manchester was originally called East Lancashire (I think). Humberside has since split with the land north of the river Humber becoming East yorkshire and the area south of the river becoming north lincolnshire.


A number of these counties actually knicked bits of Yorkshire Saddleworth is now Greater Manchester and Middlesborough and Stockton were originally part of the North Riding.

Don't think so about Greater Manchester's name (although you are right about the Saddleworth area). Prior to the county being created in 1974 most of that area was part of Lancashire (the rest was nicked from Yorkshire and Cheshire) although most of it was represented by the various self-governing county boroughs anyway even if still within the ceremonial counties.

I thought we'd already discussed what happened to (the late, unlamented) Humberside? I'm sure they only created it as an excuse to build the Humber Bridge - although I remember years ago, when doing work at British Steel Shorpe, being told that the theory about the bridge and Humberside was - apparently - that there was a shortage of male labour in Shorpe to work in the (then) three steel complexes, and a shortage of female labour in Hull, to work in all the offices. Therefore a need to have all the good (?) men of Hull commuting south over the bridge and all the good (??) women of Shorpe commuting north. That's what they told me Anyway! But then of course they shut two of the three steel plants and expanded but heavily automated the third, and office clerks got replaced with computers, so that logic sort of disappeared.

I mentioned Middlesborough as an example of a town that got hacked off from Yorkshire to become part of Cleveland? Stockton proper - town centre and all - was never in the North Riding though - it was in County Durham. the part of the old Stockton borough where it overflowed south of the Tees was in the North Riding - think this is the bit you are referring to?

The other big bit of Yorkshire that got hacked off, thats not been mentioned yet, was the urbanised Barnoldswick/Earby area, between Skipton and Colne, and the large rural Yorkshire part of the Forest of Bowland. Lancashire (the new county) grabbed that quite large area in 1974. Thieving gits!



Not all one-sided though - IIRC South Yorkshire nibbled bits off Derbyshire. I recall once walking up the hill out of Sheffield centre towards Norton Woodseats and being told if we walked (well OK staggered...it WAS early hours!

) much further we would have been be in Derbyshire only a couple of years before.

And then of course a bit of South Yorkshire suddenly and inexplicably became part of West Yorkshire only a few years ago...summat to do with a certain RL team that used to play at the Don Valley IIRC?

Indeed, the penultimate line of my address is always Lancashire.

Go the Brigantes

We let some of the westerners in but not those pesky frenchmen from Humberside, the Parisi!