1976–77 League Cup (rugby league)

The council of the Rugby Football League voted to introduce a new competition, to be similar to The Football Association and Scottish Football Association's "League Cup". It was to be a similar knock-out structure to, and to be secondary to, the Challenge Cup. 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. In later seasons the entries were expanded to take in other amateur and French teams. The competition was dropped due to "fixture congestion" when Rugby League became a summer sport The Rugby League season always (until the onset of "Summer Rugby" in 1996) ran from around August-time through to around May-time and this competition always took place early in the season, in the Autumn, with the final usually taking place in late January
The competition was variably known, by its sponsorship name, as the Player's No.6 Trophy (1971–1977), the John Player Trophy (1977–1983), the John Player Special Trophy (1983–1989), and the Regal Trophy in 1989.

This season saw no changes in the entrants, no new members and no withdrawals, the number remaining at thirty-two. For the second season there were no drawn matches in the competition.[1][2][3]

1 * Ovenden are a Junior (amateur) club from Halifax
2 * Ovenden were drawn at home but chose to give away home advantage
3 * Ace Caravans were a Junior (amateur) club from Hull
4 * Ace Caravans were drawn at home but chose to give away home advantage
5 * The Rothmans Yearbooks 1990-91[11] and 1991-92[12] gave the attendance as 3,037 but The News of the World/Empire News annual 1977–78[2] gave it as 3,680
6 * The News of the World/Empire News annual 1977–78[2] gives the score as 13-25 but other sources including RUGBYLEAGUEprojects,[1] Wigan official archives[3] give the score as 13-28
7 * Wigan's centre (No. 4) Bill Francis & York's second-row (No. 11) Gary Hetherington were both sent off for fighting in the 78th Minute
8 * Wigan official website[10] states incorrectly that the match date was Saturday 27 November
9 * The Willows was the home ground of Salford with a final capacity of 11,363 which included 2,500 seats. The record attendance was 26,470 on the 13 February 1937 in the Challenge Cup first round match vs Warr

• 1976–77 Northern Rugby Football League season
• 1976 Lancashire Cup
• 1976 Yorkshire Cup
• Player's No.6 Trophy
• Rugby league county cups

• Saints Heritage Society
• 1896–97 Northern Rugby Football Union season at wigan.rlfans.com
• Hull&Proud Fixtures & Results 1896/1897
• Widnes Vikings - One team, one passion Season In Review - 1896-97
• The Northern Union at warringtonwolves.org
• Huddersfield R L Heritage
• Wakefield until I die