1989
The club was founded in 1989 by John Simkin, the then secretary of the Midlands and South West Amateur Rugby League (MASWARLA) and currently Bulldogs president, Nigel Harrison, a Lancastrian graduate rugby league player, and Kevin Cockcroft, a school teacher originally from Wakefield. They were joined shortly after the inaugural meeting by Jim Eccles, a former Wigan RL player, who together with Harrison recruited and coached the newly formed team.
The club’s first season was in 1989 – 90 in the old MASWARLA competition and was eventful to say the least. A runners up spot in the Heart of England Nines was followed by a programme of fixtures against local rivals such as Redditch Halcyon and West Midlands Police producing intensely competitive games. The season culminated in a nail-biting encounter against Redditch in the MASWARLA Cup Final in Stroud, Gloucestershire. Birmingham were edged out 12-8 with a try in the dying minutes.
1990
In the 1990 - 91 season the team was reinforced by a number of rugby union recruits and skippered by Andrew Bushell, a young Wiganer. The club won their first silverware with the MASWARLA Challenge Plate in a final played at Worcester RUFC. The 1991-92 season saw Birmingham just fail to retain the Challenge Plate against the West Midlands Police RLFC, despite retaining the core of the successful team from the previous season.
1993
In 1993 Jamie Walsh joined the club as club secretary. Jamie brought with him his experience as a professional player; he had played scrum-half for ‘Castleford’ in the seventies, when the team won the BBC-2 Floodlit Trophy.
1994
1994 - 95 saw the arrival at the club of Tony Williams, probably Birmingham’s most influential player since the clubs early days. Under his leadership, the side began to flourish, winning the Heart of England Nines trophy in 1995 and notching up a notable cup win over established Doncaster side Bentley-Yarborough in 1996.
1995
The 1995 - 96 season brought even more success as Birmingham captured the East Midlands League title, were runners up in the League’s Cup final, won the Brennan Trophy in most dramatic fashion, had their first ever win in the National Cup and then hosted the Yorkshire Cup holders Queens, from Leeds.
1996
Outside of all this, rugby league itself was changing in the most startling fashion. From 1996, the code at professional level abandoned the traditional winter-centred season, switching to summer under the auspices of Rupert Murdoch’s Sky-TV. The Rugby Football League was keen to promote this idea, and spread the code outside of its Old Heartland.
1997
The Rugby League Conference was launched in 1997 and was aimed at areas relatively new to the game. Birmingham played in the very first fixture in this new competition away at Leicester Phoenix and scored the first ever points, a drop-goal from Tony Williams, and the first ever try, from James Brabin. The game eventually finished 36 –23 to Leicester but Birmingham went on to the play-offs after finishing second in the Central Division, behind Leicester. The semi-final saw Birmingham play the winners of the Eastern division, North London Skolars in London. The semi-final was a thriller with Skolars taking an 18 point lead before Birmingham roared back and the game eventually finished with Skolars holding on to win 18 – 16.
2000
The 2000 Rugby league Conference season saw the club finish top of their division. They then went on to reach the quarter finals of the competition where they were defeated 29-27 points by Rotherham Giants.
2003
The 2003 season saw the club finish top of their division and after pay-off wins against Nottingham and Mansfield traveled to the semi-final against Carlisle Centurions. The Bulldogs eventually found their match in a Carlisle side and went down 44 – 2.
2004
Following the success of the previous season the club applied to join National league 3 in 2004 and were successful. The clubs first fixture in National League 3 was a repeat of the previous years Semi-final with an away trip to Carlisle Centurions. The Bulldogs set down a marker for the rest of the season and scored a 30 – 20 win. This set the tone for the rest of the season and the Bulldogs eventually finished eighth and progressed to the play-offs where they were just pipped in an epic contest against local rivals Coventry Bears. The season finished with Mike Jones being awarded the NL3 young player of the year and Adam Cawley being nominated as the NL3 player of the season.
2005
The 2005 season proved to be far more demanding at National level, with a considerable increase in the number of fixtures compared to the previous season.
Midway through, the club had to withdraw from the competition and revert to playing in the Midlands Regional division of the Rugby League Conference. The players ultimately pulled round well from this dislocation, a last gasp win over a strong Coventry Bears “A” side being notable.
2006
In 2006, the club re-established itself in the Rugby League Conference Premier competition. A tough campaign of matches - Coventry Bears 1st XIII were now back at this level, for example - saw defeats exceed victories, but the team resolutely applied themselves and ended the season on a “high” with a hard-fought success at Telford Raiders, which avenged an earlier reverse.
