This was the ninth season for the League Cup, known as the John Player Trophy for sponsorship reasons.
As this was being formulated, sports sponsorship was becoming more prevalent and as a result John Player and Sons, a division of Imperial Tobacco Company, became sponsors, and the competition never became widely known as the "League Cup."
The competition ran from 1971–72 until 1995–96 and was initially intended for the professional clubs plus the two amateur BARLA National Cup finalists.
[13] The game was rescheduled, but due to a frozen pitch at the original venue, Station Road, Swinton, the fixture was moved to Headingley in Leeds.
[14] [9][10][15] Scoring – Try = three points – Goal = two points – Drop goal = one point As part of the sponsorship deal and funds, the prize money awarded to the competing teams for this season was as follows:[16] This tree excludes any preliminary round fixtures 1 * West Hull are a Junior (amateur) club from Hull 2 * Warrington official website[8] and Wigan official archives[3] shows the match played at Wilderspool but RUGBYLEAGUEproject[1] shows Huyton at home 3 * Pilkington Recs are a Junior (amateur) club from St Helens, home ground was City Road until they moved to Ruskin Drive from 2011–12 4 * Wigan official archives[3] give the attendance as 6,500 but RUGBYLEAGUEproject[1] gives it as 6,707 5 * Wigan official archives[12] gives the score as 21–10, but RUGBYLEAGUEproject[1] gives it as 24–10 6 * Warrington official website[8] shows the match played on 2 October but RUGBYLEAGUEproject[1] and Wigan official archives[12] show it played on 20 October 7 * Wigan official archives[12] show Salford at home, but RUGBYLEAGUEproject[1] show Widnes at home 8 * Headingley, Leeds, is the home ground of Leeds RLFC with a capacity of 21,000.