A tribute to a legend of the game: Brian Lockwood

After hearing this morning about Brian’s passing at the age of 78, the club would like to offer their sincere condolences to his wife Anne and his three children at this difficult time. 

Brian played 221 first team games for Castleford plus 10 substitute appearances, scoring 38 tries and 8 goals for a total of 130 points. 

He made his debut on Saturday 16 April 1966 in a home 12-10 victory over Leeds and made his final appearance on Friday 7 March 1975 at home in a 12-15 defeat to Salford.

He was born with a rugby league pedigree, being a cousin of Roger Millward and having an uncle, Herbert "Clon" Sherwood who was a member of the great Huddersfield team that won all four trophies in a season.

Brian signed for Castleford from the highly successful junior section of the club and worked his way into the first team, becoming a regular by the time the team made it to their first Wembley appearance for 34 years in 1969. He took his place in the pack alongside Dennis Hartley, Clive Dickinson, Johnny Ward, Mick Redfearn and Malcolm Reilly. A group to strike fear into any opponents.

The defeat of Salford was followed up in 1970 with another Challenge Cup win, this time over Wigan and Castleford became only the second club at the time to win the cup in successive seasons. Brian of course played a full part, his aggressive running and tackling again being a feature of his all round game.

While at Castleford Brian gained representative honours with Yorkshire, including captaining the side and went on to play for Great Britain. His greatest moment for his country would undoubtedly be the winning of the World Cup in 1972.

Back on home soil Brian continued to be an integral part of the Castleford team, which had undergone transformations when the cup winning team began to break up. He took over the captaincy and held the pack together.

By 1974 Brian fancied a stint in Australia short term and played for Canterbury, helping them reach a Grand Final. He returned to Castleford and played the following season but at the end Castleford took a transfer fee from Balmain and Brian was back on the airplane to Australia for the next two years.

Sadly Brian did not play for Castleford again, returning to a player/coach job with Wakefield Trinity, followed by stints at Hull KR, Oldham and Widnes.

His success continued at those clubs with Great Britain recall, captaincy of England and Challenge Cup medals.

When he finally retired Brian took over pub restaurants and typically made a success of them, all in his local area around Castleford. After some cajoling, he was finally convinced to write a book about his career and this was published around eighteen months ago in a fitting tribute to the man and his legacy.

Brian was without doubt a giant of the Castleford club, who possibly gets overlooked when his team mates Hardisty, Hepworth and Reilly were on the same field. His contribution of steel and aggression were integral to the success of the club though and he leaves behind a proud record of a local lad made good.