Club sponsor Caterpillar celebrated a special anniversary as Leicester Tigers kicked off their Welford Road campaign on Saturday.

On September 7 1985, Caterpillar launched its first commercially-available Backhoe Loader, built at the Leicester BCP facility. The machine was co-developed by a core team in Peoria, Illinois and the manufacturing business team in Leicester.

Over the last 25 years, five series of the CAT Backhoe Loader have been produced and just under a quarter of a million units sold worldwide.

To celebrate the 25th year of production, Caterpillar have built 25 limited-edition units, each customised with a luxurious cab interior. Number 01 of 25 is housed at the Caterpillar BCP Leicester Visitor Centre and is the only machine coated in silver metallic paint. This machine has returned from a European roadshow and paraded at Tigers’ opening home game of the season against Exeter Chiefs.

A one-off Tigers team kit for the afternoon also featured special 25th anniversary branding.