UK Top Teams : 1961-2017

Football in England has two best sides by some distance, Liverpool FC and Manchester Utd. For RL it's St Helens and Wigan. Saints are near Liverpool and Wigan Manchester so the comparison is notable. In each analogy, going from 1961 to 2016, the closeness is remarkable.

The Championship or league is the top 4 teams, scored 6-3-2-1. Then the Premiership or finals again top 4 sides, 6-4-2-2. Challenge Cup finalists, 4-2. League Cup 4-2, Lancashire & Yorkshire Cups, BBC Floodlit Trophy finalists, 3-1. The only cup left is the C C.

St Helens just leads thanks to the Premiership finals success. Wigan did best in the League Cup, Leeds the Yorkshire Cup was its specialty. It falls away after that to Bradford, a club that won't be adding points to this list anytime in the future. Some of the names here will also struggle to add much now that the county cups are no longer contested. (2017 premiership finals added 08/10/17).

Club / Comp		Tot	Prem	Lge	C C	Le C	La C	Y C	BBC
1	St Helens	428	167	133	81	6	30	-	11
2	Wigan	427	124	136	102	34	27	-	4
3	Leeds	341	125	104	66	14	-	29	3
4	Bradford	175	60	64	24	12	-	15
5	Widnes	168	44	34	42	22	21	-	5
6	Warrington	160	48	41	33	22	15	-	1
7	Hull FC	132	35	33	39	8	-	14	3
8	Castleford	121	32	24	24	8	-	21	12
9	Hull KR	112	34	32	18	8	-	19	1
10	Wakefield	77	31	11	18	2	-	15
11	Featherstone	51	7	16	21		-	7
12	Halifax	46	17	10	9	6	-	4
13	Salford	40	10	14	3	2	8	-	3
14	Huddersfield	35	12	13	9		-	1
15	Leigh	31	2	7	6		8	-	8
16	Swinton	30	4	17			8	-	1
17	Dewsbury	11	6				-	1	4
17	Catalan	11	5	3	3		-	-
19	Sheffield	10	3		6		-	1
20	London	9	2	4	3		-	-
21	Barrow	8			3	2	3	-
22	Hunslet	7			3		-	4
23	Workington	6					6	-
24	Rochdale	5				2	2	-	1
25	Oldham	4					4	-
26	Bramley	3					-		3
27	Blackpool	2				2		-
28	York	1					-	1
Grand Total		2451	768	696	513	150	132	132	60

A small addition is the World Club Challenge that six sides have won, some more than once. I allocated 4 points for each victory.

	WCC		Tot
	1	Wigan	16
	2	Bradford	12
	2	Leeds	12
	4	St Helens	8
	5	Widnes	4
	5	Warrington	4
	Grand Total		56