LEIGH head to Workington in the third round of the Challenge Cup on Friday, with owner Derek Beaumont saying walking out at Wembley was so good, he wants to do it twice.
Adrian Lam’s side lifted the trophy in 2023, when the national stadium was turned into sea of leopard print in the wake of a bold big-cat rebrand from Centurions, the suffix adopted in 1995.
The originally controversial new name reflected both Beaumont’s interest in wildlife and its conservation and his desire to push the club forward in his own flamboyant style in the wake of promotion from the Championship in 2022.
It was the fourth time Leigh had made it to Super League, but after each previous promotion (in 2004, 2016 and, through a bidding process, 2020), they lasted just one season before dropping back down.
However, that trend has been bucked – and in some style – with successive fifth-place finishes and a play-off semi-final appearance last year to go with the Wembley win over Hull KR.
It was only the third time Leigh had lifted the Challenge Cup, after the triumphs of 1920-21 (over Halifax at The Cliff, the home of Salford-based Broughton Rangers) and 1970-71 (against Leeds at Wembley).
And it followed success in the previous year’s 1895 Cup, the competition for sides outside Super League, which has a final alongside that of the Challenge Cup and which Beaumont still sponsors through his company AB Sundecks.
With Wembley unavailable that year, the venue was the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and the 53-year-old was happy to hand the honour of leading the team out to chairman Mike Latham.
“I wanted Mike to do it to reflect his contribution, and it was richly deserved and a great day for our club, which helped kick-start what has followed,” he said.
“It had always been my dream to lead Leigh out at Wembley, and I remember thinking to myself at that time ‘I’ll keep it alive’. And the year after, it came true.
“It was a fantastic experience, so good I need to do it again to remember how it felt, because that saying about things going by in a flash really is true.
“It was such a mixture of emotions – excitement, nerves, wanting to take in the occasion, noise and colour, knowing it might never happen again.
“Obviously I hope it does, and I do think we are capable, but getting to any final is difficult, and it doesn’t happen without a lot of hard work and perhaps a little bit of good fortune.”