1951 - 1963: Decline & Fall
1951-2: Bradford are the Championship runners up but beat New Zealand at Odsal in the first floodlit football match of any code in the North of England.
1953: A crowd of 69,429 watch Bradford play Huddersfield in the Challenge Cup 3rd Round. This is Northern's largest ever attendance. They also win the Yorkshire Cup final 7-2 against Hull, with a try by Hawes and 2 goals by Phillips.
1954: The Challenge Cup Final replay between Warrington and Halifax is held at Odsal in front of Rugby League's largest ever crowd, officially 102,569 but estimated unofficially to be over 120,000. (The official record stood for 45 years until it was broken in 1999 when 104,583 people attend the opening of Sydney's new Olympic venue, Stadium Australia, to watch Newcastle Knights v Manly Sea Eagles and Parramatta Eels v St George-Illawarra Dragons double-header in the Australian NRL competition). Meanwhile, debate continues to rage over the "actual" attendance at Odsal that day in 1954!
1960: 83,190 people attend the Championship final at Odsal between Wakefield and Wigan, many not getting in until half time.
1962 Worst defeat for 30 years 73-5 at Wakefield (2nd Sep)
1963: After attracting a record low crowd of 324 against Barrow (23rd November) Northern go out of business on December 10th.