THE weekend routine for hundreds of youngsters – and their families – in York is set to alter after rugby league’s biggest junior league opted to join the switch to a summer season.

The Yorkshire Junior League, which involves more than 4,000 players from under-8s to U15s across the county, made the historic decision to move its entire operation to a March-to-November season at their annual general meeting.

Amateur junior teams from York Acorn, New Earswick All Blacks, Heworth and Selby Warriors are all affected, and more could follow as the Yorkshire Youth League, for U16s to U18s, could yet make the same switch.

Yorkshire Junior League general secretary Charlie Bray said: “The decision to move to summer has been one of the most important votes the delegates have taken for a long time.

“There will be some hurdles to get over but I am confident that once the clubs start the new season in 2012 we will sort them out.”

There has been a recent seismic shift in amateur rugby league led by the National Conference League’s decision to move to summer.

The National Conference, the British Amateur Rugby League Association’s flagship open-age competition, includes Heworth and York Acorn along its clubs. They will have an interim campaign from August to November before the full summer season next year.

Other open-age leagues for the Yorkshire region – the Yorkshire League and the Pennine League – are staying in the traditional winter season but many of their teams, such as Acorn ‘A’ and Heworth ‘A’, both in the Yorkshire League, are leaving for summer with their premier sides.

Other minor leagues are switching too.

Teams like Heworth ‘A’ and Acorn ‘A’ could join either an ‘A’ division run by the National Conference League or a new-look competition run by the Rugby Football League which also incorporates some of the current RL (Summer) Conference clubs such as York Lokomotive.

It is a complicated situation, with league structures and a new tier system yet to be finalised, but the RFL, who have been encouraging a total switch of the entire community/amateur sector of the game, are planning to announce details later this summer.

Only three years ago, the newly-formed York Lokomotive became the first amateur team from the city to play open-age summer rugby when they joined the RL Conference.

This recent shift means New Earswick will be the only York outfit left playing in the winter next year, along with Selby Warriors, both of whom are in the Pennine League.

Youngsters are now joining in on the move, with the Yorkshire Junior League likewise set for a transition season, between September and November, before embarking on a full summer term next March.

Forty-six of their 52 member clubs voted in favour of the switch this week.

League secretary Bray added: “I believe there will be exciting times in the future for junior rugby league.”