Founded in 1967 when a team was created at Leeds University by Andrew Cudbertson, Jack Abernathy and Cec Thompson, other teams soon joined from areas of the United Kingdom which lay outside of the games traditional heartlands

The first university game was between Leeds and Liverpool in 1968. A year later the Universities and Colleges Rugby League was formed after student pioneers fought hard to get the sport recognised in higher education.

Rugby League reached Oxford University in 1976 and the first Oxford versus Cambridge University match took place in 1981. The varsity match has 'discretionary full blue' status. The game is now played in over 70 Universities.

In 2009 the Student Rugby League has over 100 member clubs playing in 16 leagues, split between both FE and HE club locations ranging from Napier in Scotland to Exeter in the south of England.

The Student Rugby League organises all aspects of the game within the FE and HE sectors. With over one hundred College and University teams playing across the whole of the UK the Student Rugby League is a vital component of the Rugby Football League.

The Student Rugby League runs the University competition on behalf of BUCS (British Universities & Colleges Sports). All the fixtures, results and league tables can be found on the BUCS website www.bucs.org.uk The BUCS Competition is split into eleven playing leagues with the Super 8 division acting as the Premier division being supported by the National North and the National South followed by eight regional leagues. The fixtures run from October until March leading up to the Championship play off series.

The Carnegie Champion Colleges is our flag ship knock out competition for the ever expanding Further Education sector and is a vital tool in spreading the game at this level to new parts of the country. With regional stages taking place in Yorkshire, the North West, Cumbria, London and the South and Wales, this is the fastest growing competition in the SRL.

Our College Competition is underpinned with the League programme seeing weekly fixtures taking place in Yorkshire, the North West, Cumbria and London.

The SRL also offers its players fantastic representative opportunities. We have a comprehensive performance pathway with Regional and 4 Nations Championships that take place annually to enable us to select the Great Britain and Ireland Academic Lions squad. This squad takes on the Australian Universities and competes for the ultimate student prize, the Academic Ashes.  Our SRL Pioneers squad offers fantastic opportunities for players to play and coach in countries that have had very little or no previous Rugby League experience.