Update from the Board of Directors

Hopefully, this update finds everyone well and we all hope you are looking forward to the return of the competition.

Players and Coaches

On Monday, 20th July, the bulk of the First Team squad and coaching team returned to training at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle. The group look incredibly sharp, focused, and ready to go. It is clear to see that the players have kept themselves in really good shape during the lockdown and as a board, we wanted to pay tribute to how well the group have handled everything that has been thrown at them during the pandemic. 

As a club, we have a tremendous group of players, coaches and staff who are all committed to doing all they can to bring success to the club.

2021 Squad

As you can imagine recruitment has been slow due to the lockdown but we will be sharing with you further news on our recruitment and retention for 2021 over the course of the coming weeks as we return to action on the field.

Off Field

The club is starting to return to some semblance of normality with most departments functioning albeit it on limited hours while we make use of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to allow us to protect as many jobs as we can. Again, we wanted to pay tribute to the attitude and resilience of all the staff, in particular those who kept the club going throughout the bulk of the lockdown period.

Sponsors

We are of course incredibly grateful to our sponsors who are pledging to back the club in numbers for the remainder of this year and beyond. If you can in any way support the businesses of our sponsors please do so.

Season Tickets

We recently communicated information around matchday and individual match tickets, this will be followed up in the next few weeks with details around 2020 season tickets. 

We are aware that a number of fans have expressed a wish to donate any money from the unused games to the club and while we really appreciate this we also understand that not everyone is able to do this and each person will have different circumstances and be under different financial pressures. 

With all this in mind we will be offering three options for Season Ticket Holders:

• Option 1 will be a refund on unused games at the end of the season when we have clarity on how many games are played at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle.
• Option 2 will be for fans who want to donate the unused games back to the club.
• Option 3 will be a discount offer against 2021 season tickets.

We expect to have finalised the IT infrastructure and offers within the next three weeks and will go live soon after so Season Ticket holders can choose the option that best suits them.

Crowd Cutouts

You may have seen the launch of a scheme to allow fans to purchase a cardboard cutout to be in the stands at the matches that will be played behind closed doors at neutral venues.

This has been launched in conjunction with Super League and the other clubs in the competition, it is not unique to Castleford Tigers.

As such, the capacity for orders is limited to around 250 per club on a first-come, first-served basis. We have seen plenty of reaction from fans expressing their wish that these had been retained exclusively for season ticket holders. Unfortunately, this was not possible due to the limited numbers available to us.

Once the matches have finished at neutral venues, it is Super League’s intention to distribute the cutouts to each club and we plan on using this to ensure social distancing in the main stand when we can get games back on at The Jungle. 

Get your Fan Cutout for Castleford Tigers’ matches behind closed doors in August HERE.

Club Finances

The club has been run on a very sound financial footing for a number of years and this is something that has really helped us get through this difficult time. We have managed to meet all our financial commitments to staff and suppliers throughout the lockdown period and are well placed to move into the restart of Super League. It is our intention to apply for Castleford’s part of the £16m Government loan in August, this will see us through until we start to return to some form of normality for next year.

Thank you, Castleford supporters

Finally, and most importantly we wanted to thank the fans for the unwavering support you have given us throughout this difficult time. We have seen a considerable increase in the number of subscribers to Tigers TV, the Tigers Daily Draw, and the very successful launch of Club 1926. We have also seen a great uptake in our online shop and in-store merchandise offers. It has made a huge difference to the financial footing of the club and we thank everybody for their ongoing support and contributions.