Instituted in 1896, the Challenge Cup keeps rugby league’s one fixed London date, its finals settled each year at Wembley Stadium.
Rugby league keeps one fixed London date, when the Betfred Challenge Cup Final is played at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 5 June 2027.
The Challenge Cup was instituted in 1896, in the season after the northern clubs split from rugby union, and its first competition ran across 1896 and 1897. Its final was first staged at Wembley in 1929, and the stadium has been the competition’s fixed London home ever since, home turf to none of the clubs that contest it. Wigan Warriors have won it twenty-two times, more than any other club.
The competition is open to every eligible club down to the fifth tier, with amateur sides qualifying through the early rounds, so a works team and a full-time professional squad are in the same draw. The crowd that fills Wembley comes from the towns of the two finalists rather than from the capital, and Abide with Me has opened the occasion before kick-off for generations.
The women’s final and the men’s final are played on the same afternoon, a settled pairing since 2012; the wheelchair final, contested since 2015, completes the day, and around seventy clubs enter across the three competitions. It is the one day in the year when rugby league’s heartland comes to London in numbers, and the terraces are filled by two towns rather than by the city the finals are played in.