THE fires of ambition are burning fiercely again inside new Keighley signing Richard Gould.

The 41-year-old, who is the fourth highest run scorer in All Rounder Cricket Bradford Premier League history, hopes that he can play a major part as the Lawkholme Lane club bid to go up from Championship Division Two this year.

"Promotion is certainly the aim," admitted the former Salts, Farsley, East Bierley and Gomersal batsman, who has already scored 15,345 league runs.

"But it is also an opportunity to coach the youngsters at the club and help them improve as they progress from the second team to the first team.

"Hopefully they can learn off me and I can learn off them, and I might even start coaching again, which I haven't done since I was 21 when I opted to concentrate on my own game at East Bierley.

"I ran the junior set up at Farsley for four or five years."

When asked why he has decided to make his comeback at first-team level now, having played mainly second-team cricket for Gomersal in recent years, he said: "My children are a bit older now – Millie will be four next year and Noah is eight – and they can accompany me to the matches. I have missed it and hope that I still have something to offer.

"Plus I work with Pete Roberts, who is on the committee at Keighley and is a Bradford League umpire, and he has been in my ear for a couple of seasons about playing again.

"I said that I would give Keighley first refusal, and I have had good meetings with Pete, Paul Barker (chairman) and Paul Quinlan (signed from Harden)."

At the back of Gould's mind is climbing up that all-time run-scorers' table.

Ahead of him are Mark Gilliver (15,908), Ashley Metcalfe (16,232) and Keighley's own Richard Robinson (17,471).

"It would be nice to chip away at it and get up to third or even to top the list, but I will see how my body holds up," said Gould, who prefers to field in the slips.

His last full season at first-team level was 2013, when he not only passed 15,000 league runs but set a new league highest individual score of 213 for Gomersal against Great Horton.

That feat was bettered last season by Yorkshire's Alex Lees with 227 not out for Lightcliffe against Bradford & Bingley.