Tigers community links with clubs : Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:54 pm  

As I am to be involved (again) with a junior team/club in the middle of Tiger & wildcat territory I am a bit confused as to weather or not the club have any involvement with community/ amateur clubs in the district ? I remember a few years back we had come coaches and players come to train our under 11s & 13s but during the last few years nothing has happened like this. Shame really cos it was a nice way of marketing the club and getting people involved. I have spoken to a friend at one of the Castleford community rugby clubs with a big junior set up ,he tells me they have opted to Join Featherstone rovers community partnership which includes all the kids getting coaching sessions and tickets to some games !! I'm not sure if he's pulling my leg but surely Cas cant afford to neglect the community clubs and junior players like this ?

Re: Tigers community links with clubs : Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:13 pm  

I'd definitely say it's worth an email to the club with regard to this. I think the club are heavily involved with the community,and assuming you're in the middle of WF, then there'll be plenty of pro rugby players accessible to your club anyway

Re: Tigers community links with clubs : Mon Jan 13, 2014 4:22 pm  

DAVE@CAS1990 wrote:

I'd definitely say it's worth an email to the club with regard to this. I think the club are heavily involved with the community,and assuming you're in the middle of WF, then there'll be plenty of pro rugby players accessible to your club anyway

Thanks ,I looked into this a bit further and asked some other coaches , it seems people from our club already emailed the Tiger trust a few times over the past 12months. The general opinion is that Tiger trust only work in schools who pay for coaching and things they get charity funding for. They do not have any activities going on in community clubs. One of our coaches was then told we can get our own funding to do this which we are aware of, but we wanted some interaction for the children with the club they support. We have had a player at our award evening ....but no coaching , tickets or any kind of initiative to engage the kids with cas tigers at all. Oh, we,ve had an email last summer asking for a an under 9s team to play at half time , this was the Thursday before the game on sunday !

This seems a bit poor to me , but I suppose its down to money.

Re: Tigers community links with clubs : Tue Jan 14, 2014 11:54 am  

As someone now involved with one of the local amateur clubs in the WF area, I find it amazing that we can get players down to do presentations etc, but can't get SL club coaches to come and give a couple of sessions per year to a host of willing kids. We have some real talent in our age groups, with a number already on scholarships, but the pro game really seems to have no interest in where it's next generation comes from.

The club is Upton btw, and only Danny Kirmond and Michael Shenton have been anywhere near...

Re: Tigers community links with clubs : Wed Jan 15, 2014 9:23 am  

Normanton had Jamie Peacock turn up for one session last year I believe with the under 15s - it made it onto the Super League show.

I don't think the Tigers Trust could arrange this, obviously community work of this nature would be between the players and the club directly, considering it's their employment...

You might be better advised to just look for SL players who live near/watch your club and see if they can spare an hour every other week or once a month - just avoid the clubs altogether

Re: Tigers community links with clubs : Wed Jan 15, 2014 8:00 pm  

It seems bizarre that the club doesn't do something like this. Getting one or two players down once a year to talk to the kids, give them a lesson and hand out free tickets to the next game doesn't sound like it'd be a huge cost to the club. The benefits of doing it seem obvious to me - a solid relationship between young kids (who will bring their paying parent along to the game, obviously) and the club. Has immediate and long term positive financial benefits.

Re: Tigers community links with clubs : Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:53 am  

I have had confirmation that Cas Tigers do not run any schemes , coaching or projects in Junior/community clubs. Apparently they have no staff assigned to this area. All tigers Trust/together staff are busy on other projects and no plans are in place for local club projects ! I am absolutely flabbergasted by this, no wonder gates are in decline !

Re: Tigers community links with clubs : Tue Jan 28, 2014 2:20 pm  

that is a surprise considering the Tiger's licence was based largely upon "strong community links"

....it's a real shame that they aren't engaging with the grass roots of the game

Re: Tigers community links with clubs : Mon Feb 10, 2014 7:28 pm  

A coach from our 12s has also been in touch with club recently. he asked who was in charge of community club partnerships, nobody knew ! They don't have anyone assigned to this area !

Re: Tigers community links with clubs : Mon Feb 10, 2014 8:43 pm  

The Community Manager is Alex Green. I would suggest you contact Alex.

The Head of Youth is Pete Riding.
Head of Talent Identification is Steve Copley.