Is there any truth that Keighley are in financial trouble as reported in today's League Express. I know like swinton you have had had long periods without home games and it really does play havoc with cash flow.

I hope there is no truth in this story.

Why don't you ask the chair instead of publishing it on here?

There was another recent thread on this subject and Gary gave an explanation of what you have mentioned at the Pride in the Green and Red evening.

Wind your neck in......this isn't about fanning your club merely asking a question about an article posted today.

Quote ="Marshy1"Wind your neck in......this isn't about fanning your club merely asking a question about an article posted today.'" Have a read of this viewtopic.php?f=31&t=534173&tsmp=1344886135&start=10

Quote ="Marshy1"Wind your neck in......this isn't about fanning your club merely asking a question about an article posted today.'" Have a read of this viewtopic.php?f=31&t=534173&tsmp=1344886135&start=10

Interesting side line for the pitch? Good idea??

If, like Gary Fawcett said at the Pride in the Red, White and Green meeting last week, there's no truth to what's been reported. I'd like to see the club take action against the offending publication. Whether that's a full on libel case or something more punitive like banning all their journalists from Cougar Park.

Let's be honest here, there's potential sponsors and potential season ticket buyers out there who may have been willing to put money in to the club, who could have read this and now won't. Employees could be worried for their job security, players may not renew contracts etc.

I've heard that Swinton could be struggling too.......Any truth in that?

With regard to the Cougars, as the previous posters have eluded to, we've been assured by the Chairman there is nothing to worry about. I just hope that's true. I've got a feeling there are certain individuals trying to unsettle the club which doesn't help.

Mr Fawcett stated that it was a cash flow issue that has been cleared. We have to take his comments at face value until proved otherwise.

To be honest there wont be a single Championship club that doesnt have financial difficulties - the game is dying from roots level up - nothing put into the infrastructure. Lack of games, disillusion with the powers that be etc

OH DEAR, OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE IT IS STARING YOU IN THE FACE. IT IS SO EASY TO CALL PEOPLE TROUBLE MAKERS, AXE TO GRIND AND GOT IT IN FOR THE CLUB. THEN YOU HAVE POOR GARY FAWCETT TRYING TO DO HIS HARDEST FOR THE CLUB THAT IS MAKING PROFIT AND PUTTING SOLID FOUNDATIONS IN PLACE FOR NEXT SEASON OH AND NOT TO FORGET THE 2013 SEASON TICKET MONEY THATS SAT IN THE BANK MAKING PROFIT FOR NEXT SEASON WHICH IS OF COURSE GOOD BUSINESS PRACTICE OR SO GARY SAID.

THIS GUY IS AND WILL DESTROY THE CLUB BUT AT THE MOMENT ALL WE CAN DO IS SIT BACK AND PRETEND LIKE NOTHINGS GOING ON, WELL UNTIL D-DAY. PEOPLE WILL EAT THERE WORDS SOON, TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

I am confused are you for or against??

It seems like against !
Sounds like he had as a problem with Mr Fawcett being in charge at the club!
Maybe if you can do any better put your money where your mouth is.
I don't know much about Mr Fawcett but I do know my other half knows of one of the other directors and sort of knows someone who knows the other one very well and from what he says I carnt see them being involved with something if it was going to the wall - it's common knowledge around the area the other 2 directors have plenty of funds to throw around.

Would anyone, with any money, involve themselves in a business that will surely show no return unless they were a fan? I am sure it is mostly ego building stuff but hey - there is no-one else. If there is something "going on" at the club - it wont be the first and it wont be the last. Whatever a director of this club does it appears they will be reviled. Its best not to know and just watch the rugby.

Ok, so you're pretty angry judging by the use of capital letters, probably because you care about the club, which is a good thing. I've a few questions I'd like to ask about what you've put.

Gary Fawcett took the club when it was basically destroyed, what other alternatives did we have to take over the running of the club?

Do you know of any alternative people or groups who would be willing to come in and are capable of doing a better job than the current board?

In the hypothetical situation that you were the Chairman of the club, what would you do differently to what the current board are doing now?

I'll be honest here, based on what I've seen I'm not 100% sure on the future of the club. I haven't bought a season ticket yet because even though I have the money I'm worried I'll get my fingers burned. However having listened to what Gary Fawcett has said first hand I'm reasonably optimistic. He's admitted the club has had cash flow problems and why those problems arose, he's admitted players have been paid a little late and explained why. It showed a decent bit of honesty to do that. I genuinely don't think he's hiding anything from us, and to be honest if he has strung us along with a pack of lies then he's going to have an awful lot of folk on his back.

If I didnt know better I would swear THE END GAME(notice the capitals I think he is shouting) sounds just like Old Boy Cougar,but surely not!.
While I can clearly see your not in the current chairmans fan club I wonder if you had an alternative you would like to share with us all.At the moment I dont see a long line of potentional new owners banging on the Cougar door,so like Goosey said just go down watch the game and enjoy for now.Until I win the lottery thats what I will be doing.
However I would love to know your views on the halfbacks,JD's best postion,who would be your starting props,and what about Marchy as coach for next year plenty of talking points there,after all there is a rumour going round that Keighley Cougars do actually play rugby from time to time.
By the way my local paper shop has a sandwich board outside,I could lend it to you for a while ,with a quick repaint you could have "THE END IS NIGH" on the front, and on the reverse "I TOLD YOU SO".Not sure it would fit through the turnstile though,dont worry we can cross that bridge when we come to it

I'm not sure why you felt the need to change your user name, you are still spinning the same yarn.

If you know something just come out and say it, rather than predicting the imminent doom of the club without providing supporting evidence to back up your statements. If you actually acted in an even handed way rather than apparent smug self-satisfaction you might find some people would support your cause. Instead you just sound like you have a personal vendetta.

I'm not sure what words you think people will eat, [size=150[iwe don't know anything![/i[/size, except:
ALL clubs at our level are living on the edge especially when cash flow is disrupted by a poorly planned home and away schedule. Given the size of the crowds, I would imagine many are in precarious positions.

If all you are doing is telling us this, then "you are not the messiah, you are a very naughty boy" (girl)

Incidentally, why didn't you voice these concerns at the various fans forum's - Gary was present, you could have contested what he said and sorted it out for once an for all to his face.

Well said " Goosey" - everybody knows there is no money to be made at a Rugby League club either in Championship /1. Even most super league clubs have problems. But maybe we should be patting our directors on the backs for pumping money into something which will give them no return as you say only a true fan would do that surely - no one else seems to wanting to do it or have funds to do it - so why is it some so called fans constantly pick faults with our board of directors when I think they try there best in difficult times.

I love the words, "D-Day" and "time is running out". I remember reading similar words from another poster some time ago and guess what, we're still waiting. Dreamer makes a good point, if you know something but for whatever reason can't, or won't say you are going to lack credibility on here. This I know but not telling doesn't really work. Why not attend the q&A session and ask carefully worded questions. You may know more than we do and who know's, you may have a point, but washing your dirty laundry on here isn't the way I think you should go about the business. The Chairman has answered the questions on the financials, until we can have evidence to the contrary we have to take him at his word. In the absence of something more substantial coming out this just has the makings of stirring up trouble. JD has a few weeks left in the role, let's put our efforts into supporting him and the team.

Obviously the financial state of the club would be improved if the attendances were greater and more cash was coming into the coffers.

Given the fact that we won promotion last year, have competed well and made the playoffs this year and given the very good attendances which were achieved in the Cougarmania era, why is it that the club cannot attract more than 8 to 900 attendances ? Not now living in Keighley, from a distance, it seems very disappointing that the attendances are not in the 1500 range, given the team performances.

1. The economic downturn we've been in recent years has hit the town hard and the club hasn't adjusted it's business model to suit.

2. The clubs marketing is abysmal, mainly due to it over committing it's resources to the playing side of things. No point having a decent side if you can't sell it to the wider Keighley public.

3. Cheap Season tickets well marketed from Super League clubs. Especially Huddersfield and Br*dford. It's cheaper to watch Huddersfield than it is to watch us not only that their facilities are better and so is the Rugby.

4. Rugby League, like a lot of sports, have got greedy. Remember the halcyon days of Cougarmania? Remember how much it was to get in? Ticket Prices have more than doubled in the 15 or so years since the Cougarmania bubble burst. Wages haven't. It may not be as outrageously expensive as Football has become but £40 for 2 hours entertainment is still a lot of money. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I can go to Cineworld as many times as I want for a month for the price it costs to pay in for a game at Cougar Park, and you know what? There are plans to open one in Keighley.

5. We are not attracting enough 16-30 year olds to games, they are our future hardcore support, our future life long fans. What little marketing resource we have is being targeted at kids much younger. Kids that age don't possess the free will that teenagers and young adults have. I'm 31 years old, when I look around the ground on match days I'm in probably in the youngest 25% of all the fans there. I'd love to see what the average age is of home fans at Cougar Park, if I was to guess I'd say around the age of 50. Our club is dying out........ literally.

Can I be in your younger percentage?? It is true though said it for a while. Where are all the beer swilling, shouting teenagers/twentysomethings? Apart from Joe and a couple of others they are not there. x

I think you have hit the nail (s) on the head in that post.

The games are too expensive especially for this lower level. About 10 pounds should be the price. If that gets more people to attend then you recoup the money from food and booze sales etc at he ground.

I think your point about an aging fan base is also very succinct. Free or very cheap tickets given to schools should be a part of the marketing. I think many teams in the lower leagues are dying on the vine due to younger supporters not getting on board. Hunslet, Rochdale, Oldham, Swinton are probably in this group. Also Batley have had a great record in recent years and can't draw a decent crowd and their ground is pretty good to boot.

It's a shame because the RL teams put a town's name on the map. They should be a point of local pride and identity. The RFL and the other suspects who killed the Cougarmania dream have a lot to answer for. The club had pulled itself out of the very problems you identify and had seized the imagination of the fans and particularly the children . Its all gone now and I don't know if it can ever be rekindled and the team might have still gone bust in SL but they were never given the chance.

The marketing aspect of things is problematic. It's important but expensive and the budget must be tight. I have absolutely no expertise in marketing but it would seem to me that, in the absence of a marketing budget, it would be essential to use all the free opportunites you could get. The local and regional press should be bombarded with Cougar info. If you can get on TV with some angle or other, do it. Hand out flyers for the games in Keighley shopping centre, Print some cheap bill board type fixture lists and stick them everywhere you can get away with it.

Of course success on the field is the greatest marketing tool ever and the top teams, Fev, Fax, Leigh are slowly building their support base but at our level, it's very difficult.

This steamed from a listing in the courts for a winding up order against us. Like you the chairman responded and advised that it did relate to late PAYE payments and that the petition was thrown out of court as the matter had been settled.

This is a difficult one for all clubs but when you look around at a lot of other clubs in this league and the league below at least they are trying when it comes to commercial/marketing. Please don't read this as though I know it all because I don't but we are a million miles away from a lot of other clubs when it comes to things off the field. During my time at the club and I don't want to go in to all the details but I feel I have to say this just to try and clear up a few questions. I was pretty successful in bringing in sponsorship for the club which with all the deals I had sealed totalled 48k and I still have proof of what I achieved, now this amount was more than enough to cover my salary for the year and this wasn't including what I brought in regarding matchday hospitality and matchday through entertainment. For some strange reason the club have cut back that much and got rid of that much staff which a lot of it I do agree with because there was a lot of money just been paid out to every tom, dick and harry. The one thing you can't get rid of is the commercial/marketing role of a business wether its me or who ever, there comes a point when you have to speculate to accumulate and unfortunately the club is just living on and has been living on since I left matchdays which I don't care what anyone says this is not viable.

In my opinion things have gone great on the pitch for us, ok we have lost a few games that we should have won but not even the teams at the top can go unbeaten, we really need to sort out the stuff of the field and quickly. I don't think we will ever get back the cougarmania era and to be honest I don't think that would be good for us, yes them days were great and everything about it was fantastic. My first game was the wet good friday that was packed out and I will never forget that night as long as I live along with the wembley trips we went on as kids with Mary Calvert but I do believe we can create something new for 2013 and I have to say a massive chance has been missed in doing this with JD. It has been said on here that the likes of JD and korki won't be missed but honestly without JD last season we would have not won promotion, yes its team work but he won a lot of them games for us and to be honest as one of the players said in the last Q&A he has brought a lot of discipline and proffessionalism to the club that as actually laid a marker down for us.

The directors have done a lot of work of the last few years which ok a lot of it I might not agree with but at the same time with regards to the ground and some of the facilities they have revamped what was looking tired and dated. I just think they are missing a trick with getting the cougar namebrand out there and that is never going to happen until you have someone working on the commercial/marketing side of the club along with merchandise and matchday entertainment. This can't be done by the directors as they all have there own companies and I don't think volunteers for this position is the way forward because one of my biggest hurdles on meeting new or old sponsors was the continuity that they wanted and the amount of times someone said "how long are you here for".

It is all about cutting corners, doing things on the cheap because towards the end I even put a proposal in to have my salary nearly halved for a year but they still chose someone else on commission only that lasted a matter of weeks.

Sometimes when you look through out sport in general some clubs just come to a stand still and don't seem to be moving forward, then you have to ask the question is it time for a change, have the current board/management taken the club as far as they can. It is only the same as a coach, you might get a coach that can be excellent in championship 1 but is out of his depth in the championship.

That read's like a hostile takeover speech?