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Radcliffe RFC

rugby league club in Bury, England

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 21, 2025
Entity authorityQ7280020
Source-derived summary

Radcliffe was a semi-professional rugby league club based in Radcliffe, a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England.

The club joined the Northern Union in 1901–02 and played for the single season in the Lancashire Senior Competition, which was effectively Division 2 (West).

History

The club had been founded in 1875 as Radcliffe Close Wesleyan FC. In 1896 the club joined the Northern Union playing in the Lancashire Second Competition . The club played in the inaugural Challenge Cup competition losing 3–0 away to Wigan in the first round. The following year they entered the second Challenge Cup competition and lost again in the first round, this time away to Hull F.C. at the Boulevard by 19 points to nil.

At the end of the 1900–01 season the club was promoted to the Lancashire Senior Competition but finished bottom on the competition and were not elected to the new second division of the Northern Rugby League at which time the club left the Northern Union.

Colours

The club's colours were amber and black.

Club league record

In the single season in which Radcliffe played semi-professional rugby league, 1901–02, the team only managed two wins and a draw out of 24 games played.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Radcliffe RFC” is rugby league club in Bury, England. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Radcliffe, rugby and league, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1901, 1875, 1896, 1900—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1875. For this dossier, Radcliffe, rugby and league is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “rugby league club in Bury, England” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7280020. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1875, 1896 and 1900.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Radcliffe RFC”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Radcliffe RFC primary sources, Radcliffe RFC archive and Radcliffe research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Radcliffe RFC”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Radcliffe RFC” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.