Wembley<\/a> in 1973?\n<\/p>\n\n Northern were kindly handed three Odsal home ties in succession, but while Whitehaven were easily dispatched, their other opposition proved sterner.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Hull Kingston Rovers fell 13-8 in the last-16, before Bradford won a tension-filled home quarter-final 11-7 against Wigan.\n<\/p>\n
\n They left the comfort of Odsal for a trip to the ground of the old enemy for the semis.\n<\/p>\n
\n And going into the Headingley showdown, opponents Dewsbury were firm favourites.\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite their cup run, Bradford were on their way to finishing 23rd in the league, meaning they got relegated to the all-new Second Division.\n<\/p>\n
\n Conversely, Dewsbury ended up eighth before stunning everyone and going all the way in the play-offs, sensationally beating Leeds 22-13 in the Championship final at Odsal.\n<\/p>\n
\n And with the men from Crown Flatt able to name a fully fit side for their last-four tie against Bradford, they looked primed for Wembley.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nobody told Northern that though, as a side containing the likes of Barry Seabourne, David Redfearn and Stan Fearnley romped to a stunning 23-7 win 53 years ago today.\n<\/p>\n
\n A week later, Featherstone joined them in the final, after thumping Castleford 17-3.\n<\/p>\n
\n And sadly, it was Rovers who carried their dominance into Wembley, battering Bradford to win 33-14, tries from Redfearn and Fearnley coming in vain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They had an historically poor record in the Challenge Cup, going over half-a-century-without winning it between 1949 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-518860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}