Ralph Rimmer honoured for services to Rugby League

A former rugby league player, coach, manager, director, administrator, and Glossop resident was honoured in the King’s New Year Honours List for 2024.

Ralph Rimmer was awarded an OBE for his services to rugby league football for well over two decades.

Rimmer was proud to have received the honour for his dedication to the sport he had cherished from a young age.

He said: “It is pretty special; I have devoted myself to that sport and to the industry of sport, and it was a very proud day for me. It will be something I always remember.

“It a reminder of the journey that I have been on ; that’s probably what it does. The journey right from rugby league playing fields that I began on in Cumbria right through to the point of picking up the Challenge Cup before moving onto the centre of the sport and hopefully having some impact and being recognised for that journey. Reminds me of all the battles that went on along the way. I was very proud to get it.”

Rimmer became chief executive of the Sheffield Eagles in 1997, having started his journey in the sport in youth development in sports coaching.

While at Sheffield Eagles, Rimmer achieved the dream for any individual involved in rugby league, winning the Challenge Cup in 1998.

He said: “It was the biggest cup upset ever in the history of the trophy, when we won at Wembley.”

The 58-year-old then moved on to the Huddersfield Giants, where he held roles as chief executive of the club and stadium while also being on the board of directors of Huddersfield Town.

Rimmer assumed the role of chief operating officer of the Rugby Football League in 2010 before being made chief executive on January 1, 2018.

In this role, Rimmer would be pivotal in developing the sport and helping it grow.

He said: “We realigned the governance of the sport, which was a very complicated piece of work which took two or three years. You’ve got a sport that was under a great deal of pressure, and it needed to do something to re-energise itself. Through realigning the governance of the sport and then, on the back of that, securing a 12-year deal with IMG, we gave the sport a new direction completely. So, it was a complicated piece of work and a fairly tricky journey, to be fair, but we delivered in the end. And that does give the sport some energy going forward, and lots of sports have challenges at this time.

“We also delivered the most inclusive World Cups at the end of 2022 that have ever been delivered in the sport with the men’s, women’s, wheelchair, and physical disability and following those achievements, I stepped down.”

This growth was a great success for the sport, but it is even more impressive that it occurred during Covid, a difficult period for all sports.

Rimmer was key to securing vital funding during the period, having used independent data to demonstrate the importance of the sport to northern communities.

He said: “I managed to secure funding for the sport six months in advance of every other sport. I was aggressive in the campaign as the sport represents many the communities across the North of England, ones that are already stressed, and on which Covid only exacerbated those stresses and strains.

“I had commissioned a piece of work just prior to Covid, and the timing of it was coincidental, but it worked very well. An independent study by Manchester Metropolitan University defined the value of the sport within the communities in which it worked, and that’s mental health, physical health, overall wellbeing, and also a sense of pride in the community.

“That landed on my desk in December 2019, so COVID struck three months later. I had a credible document which had been put together by an independent body which defined exactly the value of the sport.”

Brought up in Cumbria, the former chief executive of the Rugby Football League has now moved into a role on the board of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, but Rimmer still resides in Glossop.

Having moved to the town in 1997 from Manchester, he has nothing but fond memories since this decision.

He said: “My wife and I were living in Manchester, but I was travelling over to Sheffield as chief executive, and it was a difficult journey, and I kept driving through Glossop, and it reminded me of the town of Ulverston, as I drove through it. Ulverston was where I first played my junior rugby league and did my A-levels, and there was just something about this place.

“It certainly has the hills, which I do appreciate; it’s got a very honest and friendly feel about the place; it has a few cobbled streets, which I love; and it has plenty of history.

“It is a great town, and it has been a fantastic place for my family as well. It is probably a town I’m never going to leave."