Keighley Cougar’s furry mascot Freddie has got a lorry load of worry off his mind.

In a bid to demonstrate his new found fitness Freddie has pulled off a massive challenge — shifting a lorry.

There’s just no stopping Freddie now that he’s shed some kilos and stepped up his training thanks to his healthy eating programme and a rigorous conditioning programme devised for him by the Cougar’s head coach Barry Eaton.

Freddie went down to one of the area’s biggest haulage contractors, Joda Freight’s headquarters, at Flagship House, on Riparian Way, in Cross Hills, and asked whether they could help find him a real test. And Joda soon put Freddie to work pulling a stranded lorry, which had run out of fuel, just outside the gates of their yard .

Freddie said: “Wow that was a real tough challenge. Those lorries are big beasts and it took everything I had to get it to shift”.

His face-to-face confrontation with the Joda lorry was the second of a series of challenges that Freddie is undertaking as part of his fitness campaign. And he is winding himself up to undertake more challenges before the end of his campaign which started because Eaton threatened him with the sack if he didn’t get himself fit.

Helen Carter, the Keighley Cougars general manager, said: “We were really grateful that Joda Freight could help Freddie out.”

Leah Higson, sales and marketing spokesman at Joda Freight, said: “At Joda we were delighted when Freddie turned up. To our amazement; he made the towing of our truck back into its parking spot look effortless!

“This feat was not for the faint hearted but thanks to Freddie’s new rigorous healthy eating and fitness regime – he succeeded. We all wished him well and were very glad of his help.

“What a great example Freddie is to us all. It reminds us to look after ourselves, just like we have to look after our wagons. If you forget to top up the fuel, the lorry will not go. Likewise if we eat the right foods we will have the energy to keep fit and be healthy.”

Make sure you get your copy of the KN next Thursday so that you can keep track of Freddie.