Tiger, Tiger burning bright…

It is of the greatest indulgence that we enter into a Carnival theme outlining the story of Manchesters first gang culture. Ancoats, in the citys northern quarter was home to the Bengal Street Tigers, and in this year of India celebration we intend to address a hidden history linking Cottonopolis to St Marks football team of 1894 and the great Manchester City Football Club. Both Artist, Designers Sharon George and Paul McLaren of Shademakers can claim rightful heritage to the city, whose fathers were born in Ancoats and Collyhurst respectively. It is by way of homage to a place which has become a distant staging post in the life of two carnival protagonists who have continued on a path of poor migration to a life of absurd fantasy from the city we owe so much to, whose greatest export was arms and legs.