Dave Craven: Five decades on from a watershed moment in Leeds’s history

It is Challenge Cup weekend once more so all things rugby league should be centred on dreams and aspirations of Wembley.

Watersplash and the poor lad, Ellery Hanley’s crabbing, fending run to the line, Robbie Paul’s splendid but ultimately worthless hat-trick, Van Vollenhoven’s vintage, Kenny v Sterling, Eagles soaring, Murphy’s histrionics...

Rugby league’s most famous knockout competition continues to conjure wonderful memories and, regardless of conjecture otherwise, will entice people into creating future vivid reminiscences. Pardon the oxymoron.

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However, as well as marking the start of the 2011 cup fifth round, today will also spark a recollection of deep importance to a particular group of fans which has nothing to do with the Challenge Cup whatsoever.

For Leeds supporters will rejoice at the 50th anniversary of their first Championship success.

While current fans will be looking to end a 12-year wait for Challenge Cup glory this season, it is nothing to what their faithful had to endure heading into the 1960-61 campaign.

Back then, despite being deemed one of the biggest clubs in the sport, and having boasted some of the game’s finest players – including Vic Hey, Arthur Clues, Bert Cook and Eric Harris – the Loiners were still somehow yet to win a league title.

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One of rugby league’s founder members in 1895, they would wait 66 long, painful years before being crowned champions of England. Comparatively speaking, Manchester City’s faithful have had it easy.

Younger supporters will know that when Kevin Sinfield lifted Leeds’s first Super League title in 2004, it ended a search spanning just over three decades, their previous title being back in 1972.

But that first one had been the most elusive of them all so it is no surprise the club are planning to celebrate in style in a week when members of that ’61 vintage will reconvene at Headingley before the Super League game with Warrington.

If they could have known in advance they would have a fifth-round home tie this evening, Leeds might have held the anniversary shindig at tonight’s cup match with Harlequins, the very day they ended their quest.

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However, it is perhaps more fitting they do mark the grand occasion next Friday when the Wires are the visitors; it was Warrington who Dai Prosser’s side defeated 25-10 in the Championship final at Odsal half a century ago.

Victorious captain Lewis Jones will lead a pre-match parade of the stars of that stellar line-up which include Derek Hallas, who scored two tries in the final and was only denied a hat-trick when Welsh legend Jones rounded Eric Fraser for a stunning solo effort instead of finding his team-mate.

Legendary full-back Ken Thornett is flying in from Australia especially for the occasion and prolific South African winger Wilf Rosenberg will do likewise from Israel.

Dominant Leeds, who had beaten a St Helens side featuring such greats as Van Vollenhoven, Karalius and Murphy in the semis, could easily have won the final by a far bigger margin.

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It was their first in 23 years and they had lost all five of their previous appearances in the Championship showpiece but there was no denying them as the imperious Jones, nine years after moving from Welsh RU, led them to their place in history.

For younger fans at Headingley today, spoiled by four Super League titles in the last seven seasons alone, such paucity must seem surreal.

However, for those who recollect ’61, they will acknowledge the feat needs remembering.

It is sure to be an emotional occasion, especially as two of the victorious side – Dennis Goodwin and Brian Shaw – have sadly passed away in recent months.

For Leeds, possibly the best way to mark it all might be to go on and end that pressing wait for Challenge Cup success – starting with victory over Quins tonight.

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