This Saturday, April 2, marks a significant day for the group of Rugby League historians and statisticians who have invested countless hours in the revival and digitisation of the Rugby League Record Keepers’ Club.
At 1pm - four hours or so before Cornwall become the newest semi-professional club in the sport - the comprehensive record of the "summer" era (since the first Super League season in 1996) which they have been compiling so painstakingly and thoroughly will be released on the website that has already been live for some time - www.rugbyleaguerecords.com
Full match and player details for the national teams of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and France will also be released, dovetailing with the official partnership the Record Keepers’ Club (RKC) have formed with International Rugby League ahead of this autumn’s World Cup.
Remarkably, all this information will be available completely free - although for those who wish to support the club and the website, membership is available for an annual fee of £5, which also secures access to RKC archive material covering all matches back to 1895.
It’s a quantity and quality of information that will prove invaluable to the media covering the sport - bringing Rugby League a level of service that has previously been the preserve of other sports such as cricket and football.
But even the armchair supporter will be able to click on a player’s name to find out immediately the details of their career - a service which will surely also be valued by the players themselves.
Neil Ormiston, a long-term Warrington supporter now living in Leeds, has led the revival of the RKC, with a couple of dozen hard-core colleagues who have shared the task of inputting reams of data.
"We are following in the footsteps of the statisticians who created the Rugby League Record Keepers' Club and published regular pamphlets and magazines," said Neil.
"Obviously times have changed, and now people want the information available instantly online.
"That has taken a huge amount of work - we hope it will be valued in the months and years to come."
Andy Wilson, the RFL's Head of Media, said: "Record-keeping might not be the most glamorous part of sport, but Neil and his team really are unsung heroes of Rugby League.
"The sport should also be grateful to the work done by the original Record Keepers' Club led by Irvin Saxton, and the late Raymond Fletcher who edited the Rothmans Rugby League Yearbooks with David Howes and compiled the In Touch statistics for media on behalf of the RFL, and more recently to the efforts of Danny Spencer maintaining the In Touch service, and working with Tim Butcher and others at League Publications in producing the Rugby League Yearbook.
"The digitisation provided by the revival of the RKC takes things to another level. I know from my days in journalism that such a resource would have been so valuable, in the way ESPN Cricinfo is indispensable for the cricket media."
Pictured are five players who feature prominently in the revived Rugby League RKC: Lewis Jones, Billy Boston, Martin Offiah, Malcolm Reilly and Neil Fox, seen at Headingley late last year.
For further details, contact Neil Ormiston on: neil.ormiston@gmail.com.
