Any News on the Appeal

In 1995, after the London Broncos' match, I organised a 'bucket collection' to collect money, in support of our Legal Action, from supporters as they left the ground, which raised over £1000.

Times have changed and we also don't have any more games left this Season. In this case, for the price of a couple of pints a week, how many Of you who have signed the Petition would be willing to give £5 to support our 'strong case'?

At this stage I envisage the funds being held in a separate bank account to provide funding in pursuit of a successful outcome of our Case as and when required.

@garethwalker13: An update last night from Keighley chairman Gary Fawcett. Cougars have now formally handed the DR-gate case over to lawyers #rugbyleague

@garethwalker13: Fawcett stressed again, as in Monday's League Express, that this would not have been his chosen route, but feels that the club has no option

Whilst I think a legal case will be a bottomless pit, I'd put a bit in. Match entry fee maybe? I'm hoping the lawyer really does think the case is strong and isn't just milking the £200 an hour fees or whatever they are

Great offer but maybe hold the plan back for a different fund raising reason? Hopefully the lawyer will only be on a % of any compensation he wins for Cougars.
The Rugby League had plenty of time to sort something out by. A quiet meeting with Keighley & Sheffield directors. Or if the RFL thought they were right and Cougars thought they were wrong, they could have agreed to settle things at arbitration. As it is hope the lawyers really go for it and win. League 1 with £250k compensation would be an ok outcome.

After reading a lot into this - I firmly believe the RFL have tried to stick their head in the sand with this - And hoped it would all just go away like Gareth Walker did state in the leaguer this week

Therefore I do think Keighley have a good case given the silence from the RFL - If there was no substance they would have killed it all off right away .Before any starts saying over the season we deserved to go down cos we were not good enough I would agree, however a team has gained an unfair advantage by breaking rules we will never know if Batley would of won without Fairbank, if they had of done then were down if not were survive. the term SPORT was well removed from the whole relegation battle from that point onwards. Therefore the club has been wronged as simply we will never know if we would of gone down anyway.



On Sheffield 25k is what they are aggrieved over - I cant see them going knee deep in a legal case I mean a full on fight just for that - I feel they will support us the best they can but wont ultimate risk losing lots more money if things aren't ended amicably. Whitehaven don't seem happy about the whole thing but given a few factors including they actually did survive then they aint gonna help



Going Forward I think the game needs a Quick solution and sooner the RFL realise this, the better -

Keighley need that too - I already think its too late for us to be back in the Championship, weve lost some quality players and all the better players available are being snaped up left right and centre, Weather it was a 12 (with 2 going down or 13 with 3 down) we are gonna find it incredibly hard to compete considering all that - And wed be certain favs to go down. Obviously Out of Court they wont settle for given us the full 250k that's been quoted - However if the case is as strong as been quoted I think a good chunk of that will be offered - I Also cant see them wanting to give us it in one go either.

I think a 200kish figure may come if the RFL finally bow down and I can see that spread across 2 seasons Half now and half after next season - Given the nucleus of the squad looks very good for Champ 1 use the 100k to bolster more get in some quality players to get straight back up at the first go.

Then we would be going into it with a confident squad - Still with half the cash but crucially in a position to prepare fully for that league especially in terms of signing the players required to survive/be a decent team apart from what are going to be the full time 3/4 in that league.

IF we fail to go straight back up - Then at least we have the cash still to have another go - If we fail then, theres no excuses at all no blaming anyone else etc

I also say that splitting it will be FAIR on the other Champ 1 teams - I know a Swinton fan and he says if we get a big compo payout meaning the 250k then really many of the Champ 1 teams are really disadvantaged through no fault of their own - Yes agreeing we have been wronged but I do see where he is coming from at least there is a compromise there, Yes wed get extra cash but not an amount that severely disadvantages our Champ 1 opponents next season

I think that could be a realistic outcome

I know many wont agree and we should be in and Batley out - I just cant see that happening and yes it would be good to have the games with the bulls etc but if we cant get a squad together to seriously compete in that league then regrouping to have a better footing for 2016 and hopefully a league title might not be all that bad - Obvioulsy if we got he compo

I agree with some of your points 'st', but not that of being 'FAIR' on other C1 Clubs.

Is it fair on the Championship Clubs when Northern get the thigh end of £750k when we would have got £175k?

We have to get a FAIR settlement from the RFL. Nothing more, nothing less.

& there will be two teams promoted from League 1 next season; this year only one.

I think that your comment about Richard Cramer is extremely disingenuous 'quinny'. What information do you have about someone who stood by the Cougars in their hour of need in 1995. Did you?

I certainly hope that you are wrong about an Organisation which 'makes 'The Rules', then 'Bends The Rules' before they 'Break The Rules'.

In fact, they do whatever they want and ignore you and me, the Supporters.

Why have they never disclosed the reason why Paul March received an unprecedented 2 months 'stadium ban'?

Why do they appoint every member of the 'Appeals Committee'?

Why do they have the right to 'Hire and Fire' should their unseen and so-called 'Justice' Committee make decisions that they feel are inappropriate?

Why does The RFL never respond to queries that question their integrity?

I'll say no more for the time being but will continue to urge everyone who visits this Forum to ask all of their contacts to sign the Petition.

Does the RL receive any funding from other bodies, say Sport England or the Lottery for example? Of course they receive sponsorship money but which other bodies if any? And can a case be made to an external body about the way that the RFL run rugby league?

I hear what your saying and credit to you for thinking outside the box, but imo we are running out of straws to clutch on to.

Afflicting harm on the sport by hitting the rfl in the pocket through external funds and global recognition of RL will only make worse the game we love

The club are fighting this the only way the rfl will listen, shame we and others have such little confidence the rfl will do the right thing to govern and steer the future of RL in the right direction isn't it.

Personally I don't think this or the 1995 stuff need to be brought into any conversation around the appeal - yep we know the club got screwed big time but to keep bringing it up looks like the kid in the playground that keeps bleating that everyone's picking on them - it does us no favours whatsoever .

As for Marchy's ban , yep unprecedented and Paul was harshly done to , but then had he not been so much on first name terms with the disciplinary panel then the situation would never had arisen. Superleague stuff .-20 years ago - in an era that the like of which we'll never see again in our sport or our club- time to put it to bed.

IMHO The focus of the appeal should be on the fact that it is so apparent that the RFL have not followed their own rules , simple as that , nothing more ..

But do 'Kingstone Press' cider actually know how inept the RFL are?

Why should Sport England continue to fund a supposedly FAIR organisation when it is far from it?

The RFL Board of Directors is meeting on Wednesday & that is its chance to put all this right without the full steam ahead button having to be pressed for legal action

Referring back to "Backchat" on Sky a couple of weeks ago, I think most of you saw it. It was mentioned a couple of time that this fiasco with Batley and Doncaster could kill us. If we are to go down, and I don't see the decision being overturned then there has to be compensation sufficient for us to buy in the players to bounce straight back up. Unfortunately the RFL aren't interested in us, they aren't interested in any little clubs, anybody remember Bramley (established 1879)? They keep asking to be admitted back into the RFL and keep being knocked back because they, the RFL, are wanting to expand the game in other areas and aren't interested in one of the oldest clubs in the league. What I'm saying is if we slip into obscurity we may never recover. Appeals by the club to the RFL will probably fall on deaf ears but there are a lot of people, not just Keighley fans, who are unhappy with how our sport is run. I mentioned Sport England and the Lottery earlier, if these two bodies are allocating large sums of money into the RFL then isn't it reasonable that they should know how the RFL run their operation ... I know, badly!

I'm just an average Joe, I've followed Keighley since the mid to late sixties, we've had our ups we've also had an awful lot of downs, that's life but I'm not at all happy with whats happening now, but hell, I don't know , I certainly don't know how to resolve the problems of the RFL!

Edit: I didn't actually say poop!

Would a solution be to relegate one less team or would you want Donny or Batley to go down?
What would the knock on effect be "downstairs?" and with an extra team in the Championship? Is there is another team able to step up to Championship one?
Was it Batley who also got shafted at the dawn of the Superleague era?
I have always had a soft spot for Keighley.
Cougarmania made me and many others believe we could run our own teams and clubs in parts of the Country other than the North and as a result hundreds of youngsters were introduced to the game and over the years hundreds of open age players have taken to the field in my part of the Country.
Believe me, your ground breaking innovations, were noticed and inspired people much further afield than Bradford. Don't rely on justice or being fairly treated by the RFL.
Hope you can bounce back by rebuilding your club yourselves.

I would prefer that we don't go down, however it's managed. If a team has to be relegated, then of course I would see that its fitting for Batley to be relegated ... they broke the rules ... not us! The RFL deducted three points from both Doncaster and Batley before reversing the decision for no good reason. By reversing the decision there has been a knock on effect to both Sheffield and Whitehaven, who have lost money on league position, home advantage in the playoffs or not playing in the playoffs.



Of course if nobody get relegated to CH1 then that's one less team for next season which has a knock on effect to revenue. Whether another team could step up, I don't know, I mentioned Bramley in my earlier post but I really don't know.

And Yes Batley was trying to get into Super League as the runners up of the 2nd division I believe.




Cougarmania did a lot to change the game, some people from other clubs (about 10miles down the road from us), who originally hated the concept later tried to take all the credit for it. It's nice to know that people in other parts of the country are aware of what the Cougars did with Cougarmania, hopefully they will also see that we keep getting the shiiity end of the stick, not too sure the people in Bradford notice anything to do with the Cougars.

Did you sign the petition?

I just came across this interview with Mark Aston on the Sheffield Eagles page:



The discussion about the legal action against the RFL is from approx 6:10 to 7:10.

www.footballconference.co.uk/mob ... s_id=13507 Another example of this been punished.Why it only in RL that its not!!!!!

www.footballconference.co.uk/mob ... s_id=13507 Another example of this been punished.Why it only in RL that its not!!!!!