Quote: Mr Hicks "Relating to the statement by the chairman on the Cougars website, maybe we should start at grassroots of geting the crowds back. The Cougar cubs are down to 3 or 4 teams with not one junior team bellow U13s.
The U16s struggle to field 10 players and i take my hat off them for keeping going. Cougars have also said they dont want the U18s playing at Cougar park as its no financially viable. When Cougarmania was at its hieght there was age groups ranging from U8s right the way through. The club need to take a full involvement with every age group and give free entry to the ground on matchdays as it used to be.
Having driven past the rugby union ground on Sunday, i have never seen as many cars at a rugby ground in my life. I know it was a tournement but there were literally 100s of people and kids down there. What are they doing right that we are not. We are talking a very small amature rugby union club here, not a professional club who are very ambitious.
We need to get a marketing manager who has the club at heart who can inject new ideas and maybe look at the Cougarmania years and take some old ideas and freshen them up.
Im am not having a go at anyone, i would love to see Utley playing fields full again and the terraces back bulging like the night we beat Batley to win the league.'"
Hello All.
I would like to say that this statement is incorrect. Firstly there is more than one junior team in the town. Keighley Albion have an extremly strong junior section with one team having over 21 players. We as a club are looking to support all junior and amatuer rugby including West Craven Warriors who continuing to develop strongly in the barnoldswick area.
We have offered support to develop an under 8s and 9s with the cougar cubs on a number of occasions and have also had RFL support through the service to drive this.
In regards to the under 18s we are allowing them to play at the ground as our 1st and reserve team are training at utley. Also the 18s are training at Marley with our under 18s scholarship side coached by Chris Baines.
Last year the club gave free entry to all junior players across keighley and district. This including 1 free coach at every age group, to try encourage them to bring the whole team down. However this had a very poor take up.
We have changed things this year. If junior players want to come for free with there coaches they can, however, they must ring myself at the club to secure there free entry before thursday.(coaches must bring a minimum of 3 players to secure free entry for themselves).
On top of this we are inviting down individual age groups to be our guest at a home game. Teams so far have been Cougar cubs under 15s and Keighley Albion under 14s. The Albion side had 20 young players learning about health and diet
and also preparation for a game (this includes a trip into the changing rooms while the players are in there before the game) The head coach himself also meets the young players and gives them an insite into a match day. This will continue to happen all season and we have invited a differant team to each game.
The rugby union ground this sunday held a tournament with over 500 kids. However this tournament only included 8's, 9's , 10's and 11's from Keighley. This Tournament was organised by Russell Gibson from keighley Rugby union and including teams from huddersfield. It is down to each individual junior club to organise there own tournaments. We will help out where possible
The Community Foundation alongside Keighley rugby union organised a cross code game. This had 250 young people playing rugby. These were all from keighley and district which proves rugby of both codes can co exsist and also be strong.
If any one would like anymore information then please ring me and we can talk over any ideas you have.
Dean Muir
Community Cougars Foundation Manager
01535 606044 ext 202