broadcast by BBC radio in 1927. The Wembley tradition was started in 1929 when Wigan beat Dewsbury 13–2 at the first Rugby League Challenge Cup to be held at Wembley. Rugby league continued to be played throughout the 1914–15 season, however, the loss of players to the First World War, a government ban on professionalism and reduced attendances forced all major competitions to be replaced by regional competitions. The NRFU became the Rugby Football League in 1922. The 1930s saw a series of failed attempts to introduce rugby league football to London. During the Second World War professional rugby league was again discontinued, normal leagues were suspended, a War Emergency League was established, with clubs playing separate Yorkshire and Lancashire sections to reduce the need for travel. Post-war In 1948 the first televised rugby league match was played when Wigan's 8–3 Challenge Cup Final victory over Bradford Northern was broadcast to the Midlands. In another first this was the first rugby league match to be attended by the reigning monarch, King George VI, who presented the trophy. Several attempts were made to expand the game outside the heartlands, a Southern Amateur Rugby League being formed in 1949, however only Cumberland and southern areas of the West Riding of Yorkshire proved receptive with teams being founded in Workington, Whitehaven and Doncaster. Nonetheless the game survived, and continued to maintain popularity in its home regions. The introduction of regular internationals as other countries took up the sport provided a fillip. Rugby league experienced a surge in interest following the end of the Second World War. Large crowds came to be the norm for a period of around 20 years. The total crowds for the British season hit a record in 1949–50, when over 69.8 million paying customers attended all matches. The 1953–54 Challenge Cup Final replay between Halifax and Warrington, held at Odsal Stadium, Bradford, drew 102,575 paying spectators with an estimated 20,000 others getting in free after a section of fencing collapsed. The boom had begun to subside by the early 1960s; rugby league now had to compete against television and other new forms of entertainment and attendances began to fall. David Attenborough, then controller of BBC2, made the decision to screen games from a new competition the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy in 1965. It proved a success, and rugby league has featured on television ever since. Attendances fell even further in