{"id":776854,"date":"2026-09-20T14:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T14:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/776854\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T14:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T14:04:13","slug":"former-castleford-tigers-man-confirms-return-to-club-after-hull-fc-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/776854\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Castleford Tigers man confirms return to club after Hull FC departure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Rugby league legend Lee Crooks has announced his departure from Hull FC to take up a new role with the Castleford Tigers Foundation.<\/p>\n

The 61-year-old former Great Britain forward, who played for both Hull FC and Castleford Tigers in his career, confirmed the move in a personal update on his LinkedIn page.<\/p>\n

Crooks spent over a decade working across various off-field capacities at the Black and Whites, including as Head of Youth and within the club\u2019s Community Foundation and player welfare setups.<\/p>\n

Writing on LinkedIn, Crooks cited travel as a key factor in his decision while expressing his gratitude to his hometown club and excitement at returning to West Yorkshire to serve the Castleford community.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow will be my last day working for my home town club, which gave me an opportunity 46 years ago to play rugby league,\u201d Crooks wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince then I have worked for the club twice, once as a Head of Youth and for the last 10 years doing multiple roles, and for this I will be forever grateful!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe travelling has got the better of me, and I\u2019ve been able to accept a place working for Castleford Tigers Foundation, the club who resurrected my career when I signed for them in 1989 and an opportunity to give something back to the community which accepted me when I moved here in 1987, even though I played for Leeds at the time!\u201d<\/p>\n

Most Read on Serious About Rugby League<\/p>\n

\u201cI am really looking forward to my new challenge which starts on Monday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A legendary career across Yorkshire<\/p>\n

Crooks broke onto the scene with Hull FC in 1980, making over 200 appearances and captaining the side before moving to Leeds in 1987.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He later made the switch to Castleford in 1989, spending eight years at Wheldon Road where he captained the Tigers to Yorkshire Cup and Regal Trophy triumphs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Across a celebrated playing career, Crooks racked up 526 professional club appearances, scoring 2,415 points and earning 19 caps for Great Britain.<\/p>\n

After retirement, Crooks transitioned into coaching, taking the head coach role at Keighley Cougars (1998\u20131999) before managing York (2000\u20132001). <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rugby league legend Lee Crooks has announced his departure from Hull FC to take up a new role…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-776854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}