Wednesday 9th April saw us host our Q&A with Huddersfield Giants’ owner and chairman Ken Davy, the evening was attended by over 100 fans at Laund Hill, and we have posted some of the evenings’ major issues that Ken addressed.

 

GENERAL CLUB ISSUES

• Ken started by thanking the HGSA members in attendance and for their continued support of the Giants, in a passionate opening speech Ken said the season so far had been disappointing and that the club were in a difficult and dark place and the sport itself was in a mess and responded to those who claim the club didn’t care about things by saying that he has trouble sleeping at night due to the difficult time the club is going through, he stated that that wasn’t his plan at 83! And asked for fans to give him and the board time to make things better.
• Current demise started after the 2022 cup final defeat and just went downhill from there.
• He also stated that the board cared deeply about the state of the club, and all were working hard behind the scenes to reset and fix things.
• Ken has sympathy with Luke Robinson due to the injuries and disruptions he has faced so far as head coach but believes it will get better, and Luke will go on to be a top head coach and insisted Luke was under no pressure or threat to his position whatsoever.
• Ken informed the fans that the academy/scholarship costs around £500k to run, the money from the season cards only just covers this, and so the funding for the first team must be topped up by himself at significant financial cost.
• Regarding players leaving, Ken admitted, in hindsight it was a disappointment to see certain players leave the club who could have been assets under the previous head coach but emphasised that the club will always back the coach in those situations.
• In terms of recruitment, this is not just down to one individual but a team of 4/5 including Luke Robinson and Andy Kelly, Rebecca Jackson is also involved in the financial aspects of recruitment on the board.
• In answering criticism of the board/MD, Ken said any demise in the club should be down to him and not said that Richard Thewlis will sometimes take the blame for a lot of things that go wrong that aren’t to do with him.

 

THE SHAY & STADIUM ISSUES.

• The commitment is to find a suitable site in Huddersfield for a new stadium, 3 sites were identified and turned down and the pre-planning cost over £20k for each one, Fartown was one site which was turned down.
• Ken reiterated that the John Smith’s Stadium is no longer viable both financially and in terms of atmosphere, suitability for the club but aren’t being made to move out, there is an option to remain there indefinitely.
• His proposal to buy the Shay has been accepted but the process could take up to 6 months to go through if other parties submit a bid, he reckoned no later than October to get confirmation of if he’s sale can go ahead.
• At the present time, there is nothing to report other than the above and the situation could change in the intervening weeks and months.
• If his proposal is successful then The Shay will need around £2-4m to bring it up to SL standard, this includes new pitch as priority, new floodlights, TV gantry/media boxes, parking for media trucks, public parking, big screen etc
• If the Shay is unavailable for the 2026 season then the option to remain at the JSS is there.
• A new state of the art training base for the Giants will be built at Laund Hill adjacent to the current 4G pitch.
• Ken still owns Woodfield Park but as of now has no serious plans for it.

 

ISSUES AFFECTING THE SPORT

• Ken once again told the audience that the game was in a mess at the moment and that was due to various factors
• Ken’s opinion was that IMG have so far failed in their “re-imaging of RL”, although he was part of the process to involve IMG and was supportive of them.
• Some of the ideas were good in theory but not in practice, the biggest criticism is that most of the targeting has been done at RL fans who already attend and support the game and not enough done to attract outside audiences.
• The SL clubs stand to lose over £100m by the end of the 2025 season, and a lot of that was down to the RFL, which is why the clubs wanted the change as it was sending the sport and clubs into a spiral and potential bankruptcy.
• On the subject of Catalans Dragons, Ken mentioned that on acceptance to SL, they gave 4 assurances to the RFL/SL and have failed on all of them despite being the club being a commercial success themselves.
• Ken suggested he has had no communications with anyone from the NRL but is aware that talks with NRL have been taking place as well as the ongoing “strategic review” of the game.

 

 FINAL THOUGHTS

• Ken spoke passionately about the need to stick with the club and the team through a difficult period and assured the members that things would improve but the club are in a difficult place right now and asked for more support and encouraged lapsed supporters to come back and support Robbo and the team through tough times.
• His message to people who were not coming was that they are hurting the club more than anything, at a time when the club and the team needs the fans and the support, both financially and in person.
• His final words were that the fans that were sticking by the club would get the reward when the highs do finally come back, they would be so much sweeter having experienced lows.

We would like to thank Ken, along with board members Chris Taylor and Rebecca Jackson for their input too regarding club matters, and of course, you, the members, the fans, the public for coming along and for your questions to Ken and hope he addressed any issues you might have had?

Video clips of some of Ken’s words are also availble on our YouTube channel here 

And also available as podcasts here