Zimbabwe face Samoa in Wakefield's first-ever Test rugby union match at Belle Vue

Zimbabwe and Samoa will meet for the first time in Test rugby union at Wakefield’s DIY Kitchens Stadium on Saturday, in what marks the first international union fixture ever staged in the city and only the 12th in Yorkshire’s history.

The World Rugby Nations Cup match takes place at a ground better known as the home of Super League champions Wakefield Trinity — formerly called Belle Vue before commercial naming rights were sold. According to local rugby historian Richard Lowther, it will also be the first game of 15-a-side rugby played on the Belle Vue site since Sandal RFC met Sheffield there in 1948.

Yorkshire’s history with Test rugby union stretches back to the 1880s, when Cardigan Fields in Leeds hosted an England vs Wales match. Saturday’s fixture adds a new chapter to that lineage, though in a city where rugby league has long reigned supreme. Ticket sales have been encouraging ahead of the match, with the Neil Fox MBE East Stand already sold out.

Wakefield’s connection to rugby union runs deeper than the stadium’s turf might suggest. Wavell Wakefield, the England Grand Slam-winning captain of the 1920s and a posthumous inductee into the World Rugby Hall of Fame, lends the city an enduring association with the union code. RWC 2003 winner Mike Tindall was also educated there, at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, alongside England’s first Rugby World Cup captain Mike Harrison.

First-class club rugby union in Wakefield effectively ended on 22 April 2004, when Wakefield RFC were relegated from National One following an 11-15 defeat to Coventry and subsequently wound up. The junior club Sandal has maintained a union presence in the district since, but the loss of the senior club was a significant blow to devotees like Lowther, who produces the monthly newsletter Burglar Bill — named after Harrison’s nickname for his knack of scoring intercept tries. Former England head coach Stuart Lancaster, who played for Wakefield before moving to Leeds, is among its subscribers.

How exactly the DIY Kitchens Stadium was selected as a Nations Cup venue remains unclear, but the fixture gives union a rare platform in a rugby league stronghold.

After Saturday’s match, Zimbabwe’s Nations Cup campaign continues with a home fixture against Uruguay at Vallis Way — the west London ground of Championship club Ealing Trailfinders — on 14 November, before concluding against Chile in Angoulême, France, a week later.