Keighley in trouble once again.

[guess who]

We are releasing this statement to inform all involved with the Keighley Cougars that we recently came within hours of going out of existence.

This would have meant Keighley Rugby League, a staple of the Keighley community for 117 years and a place that has brought so much joy to those who have been involved with our great club, would have been consigned to nothing more than memory and the history book.

The borough of Keighley has a population of over 90,000 people and our average attendances are in the 600 region meaning that only 7% of our community support the club on a regular basis.

The reason behind this is our now former Chairman, Gary Fawcett, is currently reluctant to sell his shares in the club thus blocking any proposed takeover of Keighley Cougars and causing the club financial hardship.

As of the 29th June 2018 after paying players contract payments, the club bank balance currently stands at a sum of £34.23.

This means as an estimate, in order to see out the 2018 season we would be looking at investment within the region of £45,000. This can come as a direct result of investors wanting to invest in the club.

But more importantly, if our remaining five home fixtures all had an extra 400 people through the gates at Cougar Park then professional Rugby League in Keighley would be guaranteed.

As the two remaining directors of Keighley Cougars we, unlike others, will not abandon the club in its hour of need and have continued to work hard behind the scenes amongst ourselves and also with our sponsors to raise funds and continue to pay the wages of our players, coaching staff and backroom team.

The first team squad have been offered a new payment plan of contracts which allows ourselves as directors the opportunity to raise funds and pay all monies owed accordingly and more importantly, on time and in full.

This new payment plan will not suit everybody and this means we are unfortunately in a position where we have to announce the reason Matty Beharrell and Josh Tonks are unavailable for selection on Sunday is that they have decided to accept offers elsewhere in order to secure their financial status.

As a club, we would like to thank Matty and Josh for their commitment over the last 18 months and wish them well in their future endeavours.

There is no malice in their decisions whatsoever and we would like to inform supporters that this is solely down to their personal situations.

Our Head Coach Craig Lingard will continue to have our support throughout this tough time, as he has since his appointment, and we are grateful that Linners and his backroom staff of Nathan Graham, Paul Royston, Rikki Sheriffe, Frank Levy, Scott Lindsey, James Feather, Liam Bowness, Jeremy Crowther & Joshua Chapman have continued to work hard in preparation for Sunday’s trip to Whitehaven.

We are confident should the team perform to the high standards we know that they are capable off, we will finish in the top five of Betfred League One and earn the opportunity to challenge for promotion to the Championship.

However, to allow this to happen and ease the cash flow situation we need financial investment in Keighley Cougars now!  The club is part of our town’s heritage, identity and legacy.

Some people don’t realise that to diehard supporters, such as our own, clubs like the Keighley Cougars are more important than the result of a game or a league position.

An example of this being the have a loyal band of volunteers who work hard three times a week, helping clean, repair and help us maintain the general upkeep of both our great club and our historic home at Cougar Park.

As our friends at Barrow said in a similar statement they released earlier today, clubs like ours are about heritage, culture and the blood sweat and tears of a great community.

The Cougars is part of an identity and heritage we need in our local community but we also know we have a community of Cougars supporters living elsewhere in the United Kingdom and all over the world and we hope these supporters will continue to support us and get behind the club.

The Rugby Football League have now made it clear to clubs such as ourselves, Barrow and Whitehaven that there is no longer a pot of money available to save these community clubs and although they will support with the advice and professional administration that they are looking for a return on investment for all clubs in the professional game.

As a club we need to bear in mind that from 2021 that the Super League will be taking over Rugby League and the proposal is that there will be 20/24 clubs forming a Super League and a Super League 2 with those not involved being moved to the National Conference League as an amateur club.

We need to act now to make sure that the Keighley Cougars can be part of the new structure in 2021 and continue as a professional sports organisation within the borough of Keighley.

This means that if we lose Keighley Cougars, the chances are that we will never get it back as a professional Rugby League club.

If you would like to be involved with the survival of the Keighley Cougars then email kccommerical@outlook.com or call the club directly on 01535 606044 where Garry Schofield will take your call.

View the full article

[Moscow01]

So that’s Whitehaven, Barrow and Keighley that are at death’s door. 

What a sorry state of affairs

[Krzzystuff]

Is this related to Kingston Press pulling out and Betfred coming in, did they pay much less in the end? Are their local sponsors pulling out unexpectedly? Has this been visible to the clubs all along and thy just kept it in house as they tried to fix it or has something happened at all three clubs recently that saw their incomes drop drastically?

[FishandChips]

What happened to the crowd money from bulls game. Surely they should have some of that left considering they had almost 5* the normal crowd?

[slowdive]

I thought this was a wind up when I started reading it was just like Barrow's statement.What 's going on here?  Are lower league clubs making a play for more tv money or are things as bad as they are saying?

[MADREDNIGE]

1 hour ago, Moscow01 said:

So that’s Whitehaven, Barrow and Keighley that are at death’s door. 

What a sorry state of affairs

And that's all we have heard of so far. 

[Derwent]

30 minutes ago, slowdive said:

I thought this was a wind up when I started reading it was just like Barrow's statement.What 's going on here?  Are lower league clubs making a play for more tv money or are things as bad as they are saying?

They really are that bad. Some people on here have absolutely no idea how much of a hand to mouth existence these clubs lead. If SL get their way and eventually pull the plug on the lower league funding then some of these clubs will cease to exist including some of the so-called expansion teams.

[DavidM]

41 minutes ago, slowdive said:

I thought this was a wind up when I started reading it was just like Barrow's statement.What 's going on here?  Are lower league clubs making a play for more tv money or are things as bad as they are saying?

Yes they’re bad . It’s an ongoing battle against the odds to get revenues in and keep going 

[morty]

Derwent I think you already know but SL clubs couldn't give a flying fluke about teams in the leagues below .... I fear for a lot of clubs in both Championship + L1 

[moorside roughyed]

1 minute ago, morty said:

Derwent I think you already know but SL clubs couldn't give a flying fluke about teams in the leagues below .... I fear for a lot of clubs in both Championship + L1 

Spot on mate, superleague couldn't give two hoots about lower league clubs.If we go down I hope that eventually they do too.

[Spidey]

23 minutes ago, Derwent said:

They really are that bad. Some people on here have absolutely no idea how much of a hand to mouth existence these clubs lead. If SL get their way and eventually pull the plug on the lower league funding then some of these clubs will cease to exist including some of the so-called expansion teams.

Thing is - a couple of seasons back these teams got less money, it looks as soon as they got this extra money it’s been wasted on a boom or bust model chasing promotion. While I do have sympathy for these teams and their fans, it doesn’t look like they have been managed well

[Spidey]

11 minutes ago, moorside roughyed said:

Spot on mate, superleague couldn't give two hoots about lower league clubs.If we go down I hope that eventually they do too.

Attitudes like that won’t get more people on your side

[Manx RL]

2 hours ago, guess who said:

The borough of Keighley has a population of over 90,000 people and our average attendances are in the 600 region meaning that only 7% of our community support the club on a regular basis.

The reason behind this is our now former Chairman, Gary Fawcett, is currently reluctant to sell his shares in the club thus blocking any proposed takeover of Keighley Cougars and causing the club financial hardship.

So only 7% of the community support the club because Gary won’t sell his shares?

Surely that’s not right.

[FishandChips]

3 minutes ago, Spidey said:

Thing is - a couple of seasons back these teams got less money, it looks as soon as they got this extra money it’s been wasted on a boom or bust model chasing promotion. While I do have sympathy for these teams and their fans, it doesn’t look like they have been managed well

Have you got the figures showing the extra money teams are getting?

Not convinced league 1 clubs got extra.

[moorside roughyed]

2 minutes ago, Spidey said:

Attitudes like that won’t get more people on your side

We used to call union elitist,now rugby league stinks of it in my view.The big get bigger and the small left to die off.

[Moove]

29 minutes ago, Derwent said:

They really are that bad. Some people on here have absolutely no idea how much of a hand to mouth existence these clubs lead. If SL get their way and eventually pull the plug on the lower league funding then some of these clubs will cease to exist including some of the so-called expansion teams.

So what's the solution then? These clubs have got themselves in this situation WITH the funding. Why would throwing more money down the toilet with these clubs give a different end result?

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, FishandChips said:

Have you got the figures showing the extra money teams are getting?

Not convinced league 1 clubs got extra.

League One clubs used to get £40k. This was increased to £75k

[TMF]

57 minutes ago, Krzzystuff said:

Is this related to Kingston Press pulling out and Betfred coming in, did they pay much less in the end? Are their local sponsors pulling out unexpectedly? Has this been visible to the clubs all along and thy just kept it in house as they tried to fix it or has something happened at all three clubs recently that saw their incomes drop drastically?

Krzzystuff, please read the article again. One home game in a seven week period for a semi-pro team when wages have to be paid every week. Do you not understand how difficult that is? If you own a shop and have no clients for seven weeks but have to pay your staff every week, how would you survive? Answers please to BRLC. Nothing has happened recently. This has been coming some time, for every non-professional club.

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, moorside roughyed said:

We used to call union elitist,now rugby league stinks of it in my view.The big get bigger and the small left to die off.

And the perception is the small clubs are “chippy”

The lower clubs are getting more central funding than ever before, they must take some responsibility for mis-management, SL clubs are the convenient bad guys when a lot of the problems are much closer to home

[FishandChips]

Just now, Spidey said:

League One clubs used to get £40k. This was increased to £75k

The figures seem less than the amounts I thought league one teams get.  

Unless that was when in championship?  95k rings a bell

[DavidM]

22 minutes ago, moorside roughyed said:

Spot on mate, superleague couldn't give two hoots about lower league clubs.If we go down I hope that eventually they do too.

One will follow the other , maybe they need to realise that 

[DavidM]

6 minutes ago, Moove said:

So what's the solution then? These clubs have got themselves in this situation WITH the funding. Why would throwing more money down the toilet with these clubs give a different end result?

As opposed to all the SL clubs ...

[Manx RL]

1 minute ago, RayH said:

It’s the development clubs that’s the issue...

coach travel, over night stay winning money to pay against Hemel/west wales

at Home no one through the gate because it’s not worth watching 90-0

Don’t the RFL centrally fund coach / train travel costs anymore?

[Damien]

1 minute ago, RayH said:

It’s the development clubs that’s the issue...

coach travel, over night stay winning money to pay against Hemel/west wales

at Home no one through the gate because it’s not worth watching 90-0

Oh please. Its paying players too much money that is the issue. Clubs need to cut their cloth accordingly. Neither of those clubs require overnight stays either unless the visiting clubs wish to splash out on it.

[OriginalMrC]

18 minutes ago, RayH said:

It’s the development clubs that’s the issue...

coach travel, over night stay winning money to pay against Hemel/west wales

at Home no one through the gate because it’s not worth watching 90-0

Or it could be paying out too much money on players. I don't want to see clubs in trouble but equally clubs have to try to manage their finances responsibly. The blame can't be laid at the door of 'development' clubs who are doing their best to balance the books like every other club.