Mick Morgan can scarcely contain his excitement. He’s just been in town collecting lottery subscriptions, and can report that the place is “buzzing”. People have been talking about it for weeks, he says. “We’ve booked corporate, we’ve booked hotel. It’s the first time in 91 years, so we’re doing it right! Last one out, turn out the lights!”
Is there another town in Britain so inextricably linked with its sporting team? It’s hard to think of one. This Saturday, over 30,000 Castleford Tigers fans are expected to travel to Old Trafford to watch their beloved Tigers play in the Super League Grand Final for the first time in their history. The town’s population is barely 40,000. Castleford is not just defined by rugby league. Unless you’re a local, the chances are that were it not for rugby league, you would never have heard of the place at all.
Morgan knows that better than most. He has devoted the last 31 years of his life to the club, as a player, a coach and most recently the organiser of the club lottery. Nevertheless, he’s best known for something else. In the late 1980s, someone asked him to commentate on a few games for the club’s end-of-season video. One day, during a Regal Trophy game against Wigan, one of the Wigan players threw a punch at Castleford’s Andy Hay.
Morgan’s impartiality slipped like a loose-fitting bathrobe. “Oh, what about that! Send him off! Send the dirty get off! Get him off the field! That were diabolical! That’s just typical Warriors! Get him walking! If you’ve got any bottle, Campbell, he should walk… He’s give him a yellow card. I can’t spake. You bottleless get, Campbell. You dickhead.”
Two decades later, someone dug out of the clip and put it on YouTube, where it has been viewed over a million times. Some bright spark laid Morgan’s commentary over a video of Neymar diving. For his part, Morgan is proud if a little bemused by his fleeting viral fame.
“I don’t even have a mobile phone, I’m not in that world,” he says. “But everyone seems to have bought into it. I’m a fan, and when I’m commentating, I commentate as a fan. I’m biased, I admit.”
This is what Castleford is like a place: emotional, passionate, fiercely tribal, proud of their rugby team and proud of their town. A former mining town just south of Leeds, it was decimated by the pit closures of the 1980s. The two chemical works and the glassworks also went. But in recent years, a little light industry has returned.
The Riverside area has been thoughtfully regenerated. The population is growing. There are still a few derelict shops in town, and the place could use a lick of paint, but Castleford has dragged itself back to its feet. And now, its rugby team are leading the pack.
Unlike nearby Leeds, Bradford or Barnsley, there is no great football tradition here. Castleford is rugby league to its bones. Club captain Michael Shenton grew up on the same street as Leigh’s James Clare and Leeds legend Rob Burrow who he will be facing this weekend. “We grew up playing rugby league on the cul-de-sac,” Shenton remembers. “At school, everyone was carrying rugby balls about. It’s an area dominated by rugby league.”
Against all odds, Castleford topped the table this season (Getty) More
And ever since Luke Gale kicked a thrilling sudden-death drop goal in the semi-final against St Helens last week, Grand Final fever is beginning to kick in. Only four clubs have ever won Super League – Leeds, Wigan, St Helens and Bradford. Yet this season Castleford, a small-town club with no marquee overseas players and a coach born just five miles away, have been head and shoulders above everyone else, playing a breathtaking, eye-catching style of rugby. There are few greater tales in British sport this year.
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