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British Amateur Rugby League Association

The British Amateur Rugby League Association (BARLA) is an association for social and recreational rugby league. It works jointly with the Rugby Football League through the RFL Community Board.

BARLA was created on 3 March 1973 at the George Hotel in Huddersfield by a group of clubs believing that the Rugby Football League were not doing enough to support the amateur game. The RFL voted 29–1 against the recognition of BARLA, with Tom Mitchell being the only one to vote in favour. A subsequent vote twelve months later following a change in the RFL board, resulted in a unanimous vote of approval for BARLA.

One of BARLA's first acts was to merge the vast majority of the district leagues into five regional leagues: the Yorkshire League (initially still called the Leeds & District League), the short-lived Cumbria League, the West Yorkshire Sunday League, the Pennine League, and the North Western Counties League. For geographical reasons, the Hull & District League (renamed Humberside League) and the Southern League were left unmerged. This allowed clubs to play at more appropriate standards as there were more divisions, and this factor along with the improved governance of BARLA saw the standard and numbers of clubs rise quickly.[citation needed]

The Yorkshire County Cup and Lancashire County Cup knock-out competitions were started in 1973 as well as the BARLA National Cup.

In 1977 BARLA toured Australia and New Zealand for the first time. In that year the BARLA Young Lions made their first inaugural tour setting a lasting trend by giving future stars of the game such as David Hobbs their first taste of international rugby league.[citation needed]

A Cumbria County Cup was started in 1982.

The BARLA National League was introduced for the 1986–87 season. The inaugural season featured 10 teams.

The association has always been a champion of the amateur ethos and in 1987 BARLA played a major role in the establishment of the 'free gangway' between the two codes at an amateur level. The agreement allowed players to inter-change between rugby league and rugby union without fear of discrimination.[citation needed]

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