Tiger Talk Newsletter: June

You can submit your question to key figures at the club when the next submission period is open and you can join the mailing list to receive the newsletter direct to your inbox by visiting: castlefordtigers.com/register 

The Club would like to thank every supporter for submitting their questions to this edition of Tiger Talk and we would also like to wish everyone well during these difficult times.

Below is the full June edition of the Tiger Talk Newsletter, we have included the first name of the person who submitted the question for reference and all questions have been answered by the club’s Managing Director Mark Grattan.

Mark Grattan: “Firstly, let me start by saying the thoughts of everyone at the club are with the families and friends of all those affected by COVID-19. We would also like to express our appreciation for the hard work and sacrifices made by all the NHS and key workers who are working to keep us safe and secure.”

Rich - What’s the current situation at the club?

Thanks for the question Rich, currently all our on-field staff and players are furloughed and have been since the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was announced, all our off-field staff except seven are also furloughed. The staff remaining working are myself, one person in our accounts department as we need to keep a check on money in and out, as well as forecast and plan and also pay the wages or claim the various grants and furlough allowances. One person in the media team to keep our social media feeds and website up to date, one person our Daily Draw department to keep the lottery administered and the prizes sending out. We have three people who work on the ground and the pitch as we would like to get as much remedial work done around the ground as we can now during this down period. Our intention is to start bringing people back into work in 3-week blocks on a part-time basis as we go through June, July, and August. Our online retail operation is run by Elite Pro Sports and the club take all the profits from the online store but our kit agreement is that Elite run this for us at no cost, this means the retail operation is still up and running with no cost to the club.

Terry - How can we help the club get through this period?

That is a great question Terry and thanks for thinking about this. We are very aware that our fanbase is also going through a very difficult time so any money that our fans spend with the club is really appreciated, we have a number of ways you can help. We devised Club 1926 to give the fans something to buy into that we felt was a bit special, we are planning on bringing out a T-Shirt every year with all the Club 1926 members on as a pre-order special edition item. You can also join the Daily Draw online, or if you are a member you can add extra lines, Tigers TV is also a great way to support us and allows you to access some fantastic content and games to watch while we are in lockdown. As I mentioned in the previous answer the online store is still open and all the profits come directly to the club, plus we are running a number of shop offers on this year's and previous years items online.

Gayle - Will we restart the season behind closed doors?

Thanks for the question Gayle, as you can imagine things change frequently and the situation is rather fluid so I would say the likelihood will be that we have to at least play the first part of the restarted season behind closed doors. This isn’t something we want to do as taking everybody out of furlough to train and play games will leave us with a very big deficit in income and is something we are trying to plan for and put the finance in place to see us through. The main focus at the minute is to get the season restarted in a way that is safe for the players and the fans.

Brendan - In the last 6/7 years the club has been brilliant and I want to thank you and everyone involved for all the hard work you have put into the club to turn it around, my worry is can the club and rugby league survive this?

Thanks for the question and the comments Brendan, it’s great to be appreciated, it has taken a lot of hard work and effort to put together the team at Castleford both on and off the field. I will answer the question as best I can, as far as rugby league is concerned as long as the teams survive we will have a sport, I can say we will work tirelessly night and day to make sure Castleford Tigers survives and is a part of the sport going forward. We are currently adopting a three phase approach. Phase One is short term survival through the lockdown, we started this by furloughing people as soon as we could, all the staff, coaches and players have been unbelievably supportive with everything we have tried to do. I can now happily say that while we are in lockdown and the furlough scheme is live, we can run the club on a cost-neutral basis, Phase One is the easiest phase in terms of forecasting and budgets. Phase Two is to get through to the end of the season, this starts to become difficult to plan for as we don’t know when we will start again when we will get crowds again and also what financial constraints our fans and sponsors will be under when we return. With this in mind, we need to work out a way to get through this season with no crowds as a worst-case scenario, this is when we will need everyone to pull together, the fans, sponsors, staff and players to get us through to the end of the season. The announcement from the RFL of the £16m Government-backed loan is something we will be looking to utilise once we see the full extent of the terms and conditions for the stage two loans. We also then must look at what we can do for the people who have paid up front for season tickets, Magic Weekend tickets and match tickets to ensure that they don’t lose out, we would please ask for patience and understanding while we work a way through this. Phase Three is all about 2021 and beyond, all the clubs will have to start to rebuild, fortunately we do have experience of rebuilding the club and hopefully it will be a lot easier the second time around.
 
Mike - What are the players doing now?

Thanks for the question Mike, the players are all furloughed which means they aren’t working for the club or coming into the ground at the moment, fortunately, the players are all top athletes and will be working hard to maintain fitness levels so they are ready to play when they come back. Just after we locked down but before we furloughed the players our conditioning teams gave the players a home programme and some gym equipment to work out with, so they have the equipment and programmes to keep themselves game ready. Once we get the go-ahead to return, we will look at a safe phased return to training plan in conjunction with the RFL and Government protocols.

Brian - What will happen to the other teams who play for Cas?

Thanks for the question Brian, we will wait for the Government and the governing body to advise us on the best way forward, I think once we see team sports startup in this country we will have more of an idea on what’s happening, the biggest issue for teams other than the First Team will possibly be around facilities for training as the ground and buildings may have to be for First Team use only while the virus comes under control.

Carl - Just wondered - since stopping the match programmes, has the switch to ROAR been better from a revenue perspective and is it worth putting it up to £2 (personally think it deserves an increase). Sorry for a follow-on question but due to the current situation will the digital versions still be available in a hard copy? Stay Safe - Stay Strong - Always be a Tiger!

Thanks for the question and best wishes Carl, the ROAR magazine has been a success and very well received. We launched very cheap so that people would try the magazine, we look at a mix of cost price, magazine sales and advertising income to come to a price we need to sell at, this will be reviewed at the end of each year with the suppliers. In terms of a hard copy whilst in lockdown, unfortunately, we aren’t able to produce the magazine in hard copy format as we don’t have the outlets to sell it from, anyone with a subscription to ROAR will have the end date extended to ensure they receive 12 physical copies.
 

Billy -  I think most Cas fans now believe that the stadium at Glasshoughton is not going to happen, what alternatives are the club working on i.e. stadium improvements, redevelopment of our existing ground or is the club still planning to move to a new stadium?

Thanks for the question Billy, in an ideal world we would love to be in a brand-new stadium and despite the delays, progress was being made albeit very slowly on the new development. I hope you have noticed some of the work being done on Wheldon Road this season. So far, we have re-clad the side of the Main Stand and put new perspex in the Main Stand too. We have refurbished the Tiger Bar and changed it to the Legends Lounge and we have updated the Vice President’s Lounge to the all-new Chairman’s Lounge. This has all been done alongside a vast amount of unseen health and safety work to keep the ground a safe place and enable us to get a safety certificate, when we come through the other side of the virus we will look at all the options open to us, in the current situation we are very grateful to own our stadium and training venue that enables us to keep costs to a minimum while in lockdown.
 
Chris - I have tried to buy an away shirt online but they don’t have my size, will you be getting more stock?

Thanks for the question and support Chris. It would help if I explained the process around what happened with online stock and lockdown. On the lead up to the Saints game it was fairly evident that we would follow other countries and go into lockdown, while we still had staff available, we sent a large amount of stock over to the online store, this included 2020 stock and sale stock. We also had to be aware of storage at Elite Pro Sports as they deal with a number of clubs and all wanted to send additional stock to them causing them storage issues. This year all three shirts sold well and all sold quickly, we always order much larger quantities of home shirts as they are the biggest seller, we then top up if we need more when the season starts. Due to the fast sales we are running low on some sizes in the home shirt but running low or out of stock on a lot of sizes in the away and third shirt. Due to the lockdown and the uncertainty of the situation we cancelled our top-up order. We still have good availability on most items online except for shirts and odd bits of training wear, as of June 1st we do have a couple of members of the retail team in work, they will be completing a store and online stock check and will start to move more items into online from around June 8th onwards. Best bet is to keep checking the online store if we have your size it will appear online soon.

Darren - I have 3 questions I’d like to ask. 1) Given the state of an uncertain world, how are the club prepared financially to survive? 2) This year marks the anniversary for Castleford’s last cup victory in 86. Did you have any special plans for the occasion and will they still be going ahead once permitted? 3) Given the cup anniversary and the large number of supporters that value our heritage, why hasn’t the club released its own heritage range. Retro rugby clothing is very big at the moment and the old 70’s and 80’s shirts are almost impossible to get hold of. An 86 range of home, away and the tracksuit top would have sold very well and help support the club financially.

Hello Darren – Thanks for the questions, yes we did have plans in place to celebrate the cup victory, we had dedicated and themed a game around this, unfortunately this has all been put on hold and will be reviewed once we return to normality. In terms of a clothing range, we have recently done a heritage range the polo’s and jackets sold well but the shirts didn’t and ended up being discounted quite heavily, we are continually looking at new ranges and heritage themed ranges, again this is something we had planned in for this year that has now been put on hold, it will be something we will resurrect once we get back to normal and get our stock levels reset.

Ian - Can I have an update on the players who were out injured prior to the suspension of the season, and secondly how have those injured players been receiving treatment with all the travel and social distancing rules currently in place?

Thanks for the question, as we stand the First Team squad should all be available for selection when we restart the season, players with injuries all had rehab plans before lockdown, follow up scans and follow up doctors and surgeons appointments have been attended as normal. Once out of furlough the coaching, medical and conditioning staff will provide a programme to transition the players back to match fitness as quickly and safely as possible. I had a good catch up with Matty Crowther last week who is very happy with the current health of the First Team squad.

Mark Grattan: “I wanted to finish by thanking everyone who is connected to the club, everyone has been brilliant and supportive in trying to help us through the crisis. We have had sponsors pledging to extend sponsorship deals, fans offering to donate money, fans telling us they don’t want anything back for season tickets if we play everything behind closed doors, players and staff taking cuts to get us through lockdown. We have had lots of cards and messages from fans of the club from all over the country, I can’t tell you how much this has been appreciated. We send our best wishes to you all, stay safe and we hope to see you again at a packed-out Jungle in the not too distant future.”