Mr John Maloney, who has done extensive research on the game and local teams, said Birstall Intermediates were a side of Under-21 players, based at the Wine and Spirit Vaults in Birstall. Their president was John Mellor, the then licensee at the Vaults and they played games on a pitch just below Birstall Cricket ground on Leeds Road.
They were forced to play in the Leeds Intermediate League because there was no Under-21 league in the Heavy Woollen area, that meant travelling to the far reaches of Leeds to play fixtures, no mean feat when the team had to rely on public transport.
Mr Maloney explained the Birstall Intermediates were formed in the 1934-35 season and won the Heavy Woollen Cup beating Gawthorpe in the final in their first season. He said in the following season they won the Heavy Woollen Cup, beating West Ardsley, and then beat the same team to win The Reporter Cup. The crowning glory was to win the Yorkshire Cup, beating Rastrick 5-2 in the final. That was the first time since Dewsbury Celtic in 1914 that the Yorkshire Cup was won by a Heavy Woollen side.
They continued for another couple of seasons but with the players all reaching their 21st birthdays, and with war looming, the team folded and the players moved on to open age rugby with other teams. Among the players on the photograph were captain Jim Robinson, Freddy Ellis and Eddie Haigh, who went on to be the mayor of Batley and Birstall.
The picture also brought back memories for the first Batley Rugby League Queen, Mrs Lily Brammer, formerly Farrar, once of Birstall and now living in Mirfield.
She has the same cigarette card in her family's photograph collection because one of the players was her cousin, William Woulds.
She also remembers a couple of the other players, Jack Taylor and Jonah Farrar. They were all neighbours in Hilberoyd Road and were all keen sportsmen, also playing football and cricket for the Hilberoyd teams of the day. Mrs Brammer also has pictures of them representing the area at roller hockey at the Batley Rink.
She recalled that her cousin died in 1941 at the age of 26 from rheumatoid fever. Jonah Farrar emigrated to Australia.
Mr Maloney also pointed out that rugby league re-emerged in Birstall in 1957-58 season with the formation of an open age side called Birstall Kirkgate. An instigator in the team was a former boxer, Farrell Kelly, who was the landlord at the Black Bull where the team were based.
They played at Monk Ings Field but Mr Maloney said after a couple of poor seasons, and some big defeats, the club folded in the 1958-59 season.
A former Batley Victoria player of the 1970s, Mr Ken Pearson, found a report on the team in The Reporter of 1935 in the library. From it he learned the Birstall Intermediates team were resplendent in their green and red kit. The report relates how they were greeted by a big crowd outside the Wine and Spirits Vaults and they all walked together to their ground at Copley Farm.
Mr Pearson added that after beating Gawthorpe by a last minute penalty in the HW Cup the paper's correspondent remarked 'that there had not been such excitement about rugby football in Birstall since Birstall Celtic in 1924', which opens up a whole new chapter on the sport in one village.