Taming the Tigers
From the collection of
From the collection of
A professional rugby team, the Castleford Tigers, and their supporters live through a passionate season on a quest for victory.
The Tigers - also known as 'The Glassblowers' because many fans were glassblowers - have a long and proud history going back to their founding in June 1926. Interestingly, it was on 21st June 1926, right in the middle of a national Miners' Strike, and after the collapse of the General Strike, that the British Government introduced a Bill into the House of Commons that suspended the miners' Seven Hours Act for five years. It was thus an inauspicious time to be setting out as a professional rugby club in a mining town. Nevertheless, Castleford won the Yorkshire League title in 1932 and followed this with its first Challenge Cup victory in 1935. They subsequently won back-to-back victories in the Challenge Cup in 1969 and 1970, before doing so again in 1986. One of the founding members of the Super League in 1996, they have been relegated twice, only to bounce back both times - making appropriate the choice of I Get Knocked Down (aka 'Tubthumping') as a morale-boosting song, from Leeds' rebel group Chumbawamba.
The Castleford Tigers RLFC is the subject of this lively and colourful film. It follows five characters from the club as they pursue the Wembley dream in the 1999 Silk Cut Challenge Cup, capturing the magic, passion and humour of this tightly knit community at a very significant time in both the sport of rugby and the club's history.