The 2005 National League Cup in British rugby league was sponsored by train operating company Northern Rail, and was therefore known as the Northern Rail Cup. The 2005 competition was the first to feature sides from National League Three: previously the competition had only featured sides from National Leagues One and Two.
There were no cross-group games in the 2005 competition, each team therefore playing only six games in the group stages. The top team from each of the first five groups progressed to the quarter-final directly. The second-placed team in each of these groups, plus the top team from group six (the group of teams from National League 3), played an additional round to determine the remaining three spots in the quarter-finals.
The winners of the 2005 Northern Rail Cup were Hull Kingston Rovers.
Famous quotes containing the words northern, rail and/or cup:
“The note of the white-throated sparrow, a very inspiriting but almost wiry sound, was first heard in the morning, and with this all the woods rang. This was the prevailing bird in the northern part of Maine. The forest generally was alive with them at this season, and they were proportionally numerous and musical about Bangor. They evidently breed in that State.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I write mainly for the kindly race of women. I am their sister, and in no way exempt from their sorrowful lot. I have drank [sic] the cup of their limitations to the dregs, and if my experience can help any sad or doubtful woman to outleap her own shadow, and to stand bravely out in the sunshine to meet her destiny, whatever it may be, I shall have done well; I have not written this book in vain.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)