Take a trip back to the seventies, when Keighley were in the top flight and cup fever gripped the fans.
IT’S been a lean few years down Lawkholme Lane.
Hopes were high among the Keighley faithful when Rhys Lovegrove’s side were promoted from League One in 2022 as runaway champions, winning all 20 matches.
But second-tier status lasted only one season, and with Cougars coaches coming – and going – supporters are hoping Alan Kilshaw is the man to bring back some good times to the old textile town by the River Worth – and prove to be another Alan Kellett or Roy Sabine.
The Cougarmania years of the 1990s, when amid pioneering rugby league razzmatazz and rising attendances, Keighley enjoyed success on the pitch but were controversially denied a place in the new Super League, have been well documented in the past, including in Rugby League World magazine.
Less well recalled is the period in the the 1970s when Kellett led the West Riding side, who had a star performer in fullback Brian Jefferson, to a place in the top flight and his successor in the hot seat, fellow ex-Yorkshire halfback Sabine, took them to within a win of a Challenge Cup Final.
Both men had a previous association with Keighley.
For Kellett, it was a two-year spell as player-coach between 1968 and early 1970 (after he had represented Oldham, hometown club Halifax and Bradford).
And for Sabine (like Jefferson a rugby union product), an eight-season stint which included moving up from the newly-formed Second Division in 1962-63, when Welsh fullback Garfield Owen was pivotal and future Great Britain tourist Geoff Crewdson a driving force from the second row.
Having been dropped after only two years to return to a single division, the two-section set-up was reintroduced for 1973-74, and once again, Keighley found it to their liking, climbing to the first tier at the first attempt.
After second spells at Halifax and Oldham, then a period as player-coach of Bradford, Kellett took the reins at Lawkholme Lane (the old name for Cougar Park, of course) after Ken Traill quit in January 1973.
He inherited a squad which while inconsistent, included some talented players, not least Jefferson, signed in 1965 from Leeds rugby union outfit Moortown as a stand-off who after a time on the wing, developed into a stylish goal-kicking fullback who had earned both Yorkshire and England recognition.
He was among the main men in the team who won promotion alongside neighbours Bradford and Halifax, as well as York, and smashed two club scoring records for a season – most points (331) to outstrip the previous best of 261 by 1950s Kiwi fullback Joe Phillips and most goals (155), beating Owen’s 128 in 1962-63.
Ex-Leeds prop John Burke, second row David Garbett, versatile pack player and local lad Allan Clarkson, hooker Dean Raistrick and halfback or loose-forward Kenny Loxton, who Kellett signed from Huddersfield, also proved reliable operators, while young winger John Stephenson was making his mark.
A mid-campaign run of nine consecutive league victories – Keighley also claimed a first-ever win at Wigan in the second round of the Player’s No.6 Trophy – provided a launch pad for the final run-in, with each of the last seven outings yielding two points for a final tally of 40 from a possible 52.
Not surprisingly, they proved harder to come by the season after, but Kellett’s side picked up enough to retain their place at the top table, with reigning champions Salford, Castleford and Featherstone among those seen off at home and Bradford beaten at Odsal.
Making a comeback to the Keighley team after an absence of eight years and at the age of 36 was Sabine, who had returned to Lawkholme Lane to take charge of the Colts.
And when Kellett resigned over a split decision in the boardroom as to whether he should be offered a new contract for 1975-76, Sabine succeeded him as coach, soon guiding his charges to the semi-finals of the Yorkshire Cup, with Leeds winning 11-2 at Lawkholme Lane.
Despite the mid-season sale of emerging centre (and future coach) Peter Roe to Bradford for £6,500, then a Keighley record for a fee received, Sabine’s side embarked on a Challenge Cup run, defeating Halifax away and Workington and Leigh at home to earn a semi-final showdown with St Helens at Fartown, Huddersfield.
Keighley’s only Wembley appearance had been in 1937 (Widnes lifted the silverware).
And while acknowledging the power of Saints, the reigning champions who had recently won 21-2 in a league fixture between the sides at Knowsley Road, chairman Ken Riley insisted: “People who say it will be a walkover are talking rubbish. They could have the jitters about being beaten by a team of unknowns.”
Jefferson added: “The thought of playing at Wembley gives us a terrific incentive to raise our game. I think it will be close.”
He wasn’t wrong, because Keighley asked plenty of questions of Eric Ashton’s men, and limited them to just one try, then worth three points.
It was scored by Jeff Heaton on the stroke of half-time amid confusion after a spectator among the 9,829 crowd sounded a claxon which some of the players seemed to think was the hooter.
Geoff Pimblett converted for a 5-0 lead, which Keighley chipped way at in the second half, with Jefferson dropping goals either side of landing a 57th-minute penalty.
However Saints held on to win 5-4, and Sabine reflected: “We just ran out of time. Maybe instead of going for the second drop-goal, we should have kept the pressure on.”
Ten days later, Keighley beat Saints 14-12 in the league at Lawkholme Lane, but it wasn’t enough to save them from relegation with Dewsbury, Huddersfield and Swinton.
Sabine fell short in his attempt to win a return to the First Division at the first attempt, his team finishing two places and four points below the promotion zone.
And early in the 1977-78 season, both he and boardroom supremo Riley left the club amid criticism from fans after a run of five straight defeats.
After the departure of Sabine’s successor Barry Seabourne, the former Leeds, Bradford and Great Britain scrum-half, Kellett had third spell as Keighley coach in 1979-80.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 508 (May 2025)
