Eorl Crabtree (born 2 October 1982) is a British former professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s. He played at representative level for

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, and at club level in the

Super League Super League (also known as the Betfred Super League for sponsorship reasons, and legally Super League Europe Ltd.) is a professional rugby league competition, and the highest level of the British rugby league system, which consists of twelve t ...

for the

Huddersfield Giants The Huddersfield Giants are an English professional rugby league club from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. Huddersfield play their home games at the John Smiths Stadium and compete in Super League, the top tier of British rugby league sy ...

, where he spent his entire club career, primarily as a , but also as a or .

Early years

Born in

Cleethorpes Cleethorpes () is a seaside town on the estuary of the Humber in North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England with a population of 29,678 in 2021. It has been permanently occupied since the 6th century, with fishing as its original industry ...

, Lincolnshire, Crabtree has lived in Meltham since he was three years old and attended Honley High School. He is a distant nephew of legendary professional wrestler Shirley "Big Daddy" Crabtree, himself a former professional

footballer who played for Bradford Northern, although he never made an appearance for the first team. Eorl Crabtree

Playing career

Club career

Crabtree signed for Huddersfield on his 17th birthday and he made his début for the club in 2001. The following season he scored 25 tries in 37 league and cup appearances whilst playing at during Huddersfield's

National League National League often refers to: *National League (baseball), one of the two baseball leagues constituting Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada *National League (division), the fifth division of the English football (soccer) system ...

promotion season. His breakthrough year in Super League was 2004 where, under coach Jon Sharp, he established himself as a regular in Huddersfield's first team and developed a reputation as an imposing figure with his mix of size and athleticism. Crabtree played for Huddersfield in the 2006 Challenge Cup Final as a against St. Helens but the Giants lost 12–42. Crabtree had a superb 2009 campaign at

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confl ...

. Having helped them to a third-place finish in the

, and to

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...

for the

Challenge Cup The Rugby Football League Challenge Cup, commonly known just as the Challenge Cup is a Single-elimination tournament, knockout rugby league cup competition organised by the Rugby Football League, held annually since 1896, it is the world's old ...

final, Crabtree also impressed national coach Tony Smith who selected Eorl in the

squad for the 2009 Four Nations. At the end of the year, Crabtree signed a new long-term contract until the end of the 2015 season. Crabtree was an integral part of the Huddersfield team that finished top of Super League XVIII, and was one of four Huddersfield players selected in the Super League Dream Team that year. In April 2014, Crabtree made his 350th appearance for the Giants in a 33–14 win over Warrington in

Super League XIX The First Utility Super League XIX was the official name for the 2014 Super League season. Fourteen teams competed over 27 rounds, after which the 8 highest finishing teams entered the play-offs to compete for a place in the Grand Final and a c ...

. With this appearance he is currently the 14th most capped Huddersfield club player ever. In 2015, he signed an extension to his contract taking him until the end of the 2017 season. On 3 September 2015, Crabtree made history and became the 10th most capped club player of the Huddersfield Giants. He also scored a rare try on his 400th appearance for the club. Crabtree announced his retirement as a player on 7 November 2016 to become an ambassador for Huddersfield. He also made regular appearances as a commentator and pundit for

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC BBC Television, television, BBC Radio, radio and BBC Online, online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadc ...

's rugby league coverage. In January 2024, Crabtree became the managing director of League 1 club the Midlands Hurricanes.

International career

Crabtree played 13 times at international level for

. He featured in the

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

and

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Four Nations tournaments, but missed out on selection in 2011.

References

External links and notes

*(archived by web.archive.org
Huddersfield Giants profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crabtree, Eorl 1982 births Living people Crabtree family England national rugby league team players English rugby league players Huddersfield Giants players Sportspeople from Cleethorpes Rugby league centres Rugby league locks Rugby league players from Lincolnshire Rugby league props Rugby league second-rows