Welcome to the NWC 16-18 Website

Parade before the 2008 Challenge cup semi final between St Helens and Leeds to accept our League Mark Accreditation

This League caters for all clubs in the North West who have teams playing at Under 16, Under 17 and Under 18.

This region stretches from Cumbria in the north and Warrington in the south:  to the east we have teams from the Oldham area and our most westerly teams play at the seaside in Blackpool.   In total we have just over 50 clubs and about 100 teams taking part in our league competition which starts at the beginning of September and finishes at the end of March each season.   We usually play on Sunday mornings, although there may well be scheduled matches mid week at the beginning of the season to help with what might become a fixture backlog later in the season.   We believe that the friendship and collegiality which is formed when playing our game cannot be matched by any other sport. Those who play amateur rugby league at weekends and who train during the week,  we hope will not have either the inclination or the time to become vandals and thieves.

This League was the first to be accredited with the RFL League Mark and has had this accreditation for one full season, and is now going into the second season.  Part of our development plan is to ensure that all clubs have achieved Club Mark status and each team has at least one Touchline Manager.   We are getting there and hopefully by the end of the season, this plan will be completed.

This season has seen the number of teams playing at Under 17 doubled and whilst in some cases this has affected the Under 18 team at some of the clubs, this can only be a positive trend.   The junior league constantly accepts new teams at very young ages and they all progress through the North West Counties Leagues in one-year age groups.  It makes sense to continue with this trend.

The North West is best – a common phrase used in this area.   Last season teams at Under 18s and Under 16s won the Northern Rail National Cup Competitions at their respective age groups.   It was a similar story with the Under 14s and Under 12s.  In fact out of 6 teams competing in the finals of this competition, only 1 team out of our area reached that stage of the competition. So NORTH WEST IS BEST.

We have five teams from our region at the Under 18 age group who have opted to play in the prestigious National Youth League competition.   They travel even further afield and they compete very favourably with teams from the North East, Wales, Yorkshire, Cumbria and Hull.   The League winners overall came from the North West last season.

We wish all the teams in the North West a very enjoyable season – and although our first aim is enjoyment, we wish you all success as well.