People's Republic

Harrogate Town  2  Morercambe  1

Papa Johns Trophy – Group Stages

Admission / Programme – £10 / £1

When the Northern Counties East League was formed in 1982, much was said about the varying strength of the two leagues that were coming together to create it.

On the one hand you had the traditionally strong Midland Counties League, with clubs predominantly from the East Midlands, Lincolnshire and the East Riding, while on the other hand you had the Yorkshire League, which was, well, made up of clubs from Yorkshire!

The first Premier Division was weighted in favour of the Midland Counties League, with only Emley, Guiseley, Thackley, Winterton Rangers and Bentley VW making the top flight, just 25% of the make up. Guiseley were the best performer finishing fifth. Above them were champions Shepshed Charterhouse, Eastwood Town, Belper Town and Spalding United.

We are now forty years on from the formation of the NCEL, so, if we look back, who can we say has gone on to do great things?

If we take the clubs that were traditional MCL clubs, the major success story has been Alfreton Town who had a three season spell in the National League top flight, otherwise, other than a couple of flirtations from neighbouring basket cases, Ilkeston and Eastwood, who made it to National North, it’s been pretty grim.

But then when you look at the Yorkshire League clubs, Guiseley made it to the non-league top table, as did Farsley Celtic, and so did North Ferriby United, who also won the FA Trophy beating Wrexham in the Final at Wembley. Let’s not forget Emley either who got to within a whisker of making it, but on top of that had some superb FA Cup runs during a golden era. You could argue all four did suffer as a result of their efforts and to an extent, overachieving, but then we have another club in the shape of Harrogate Town, who not only made it to the top table, but they now sit proudly in the Football League.

Let’s not kid ourselves though, we know the backing of Strata Homes and Irving Weaver have played a huge financial part in the clubs success, but it’s alright having money, you need to know how to spend it!

I first went to Harrogate Town back in 1987, they had been promoted to the top flight of the Northern Counties East League, and Belper were the visitors. Harrogate won that day 2-0 and it was to be a number of years before I went again because the Wetherby Roaders made it back to back promotions as they became founder members of the newly formed Northern Premier League First Division.

October 1999 was the next visit to an improved Wetherby Road (they had built a new stand) and it was a 2-2 draw, before my last visit in January 2001 for a midweek game when Belper lost 3-1. Harrogate were promoted at the end of the following season and the game they won to secure that promotion happened to be at Belper. At the time I was Press Officer for Belper and I was approached by BBC Radio Leeds to provide updates throughout the game from a Harrogate perspective. At the time, the Chairman was ex-Leeds United supremo Bill Fotherby, so local media interest at the time was high.

A fifth placed finish in 2003-04 season saw the club high enough up the table to make the cut for the newly formed Conference North, where they remained until the Weaver / Strata era and then in 2017-18 a second placed finish saw them promoted through the play offs thanks to a 3-0 victory over Brackley Town.

The 2019-20 season which was curtailed by Covid saw them placed second in the top flight after 37 games, so they made the revised play offs and thanks to a victory over Notts County at Wembley they had made it to the Football League for the first time in their history. Add in an FA Trophy win at Wembley against Concord Rangers and it made for a highly successful, albeit unusual, season!

The Football League experience has had it’s ups and downs as the club tries to establish itself, and last season the average crowd was a modest 2,074, although let’s remember Harrogate is perhaps not somewhere you would consider as a football town, with a very middle class demographic you would be forgiven for thinking it might be more of an oval ball kind of place, but credit where it’s due.

So, how did I end up at Harrogate Town on a Tuesday night for Papa Johns Trophy game?

Work again, two days in North Yorkshire meant an overnight staff, which of course constituted a look at the fixtures before accommodation was booked. Bingo……and to be fair I’d been thinking of re-visiting for a while, so it was an opportunity to tick one off.

It’s a decent walk out of the centre of Harrogate, going across the large expanse that is The Stray, before getting onto Wetherby Road. The ground is on the left just after the hospital, and upon approach, I was really curious as to how much had changed since my last visit over twenty years earlier.

A covered terrace has been built behind the North goal, it was open standing when I last went, while on the East side the old stand has been replaced with a larger version, while next to it is another area of covered terracing. Shallow terracing for away fans sits behind the South goal and this has replaced an older area of cover and seats that used to back onto the old clubhouse, while on the Wetherby Road West side of the ground the old cover has gone to be replaced by new terracing and a smaller area for seats that's used by away fans.

It's smart, it’s tidy, it’s aesthetically pleasing, and given the space they have, which isn’t an awful lot, they’ve probably done the best job they could do. Of course you may remember as well that to gain access to the Football League they had to rip up the recently laid plastic pitch and replace it with grass, which was something of an expensive annoyance for the club.

The food bars were very good, but, and get this, no booze!! They did have an hospitality area where beer pumps could be seen through the window, but I wasn’t getting in. It seems any time soon the booze situation will be changing for the better, but for me, it was a dry game, and I wasn’t driving!

Other than that, I was happy in my surroundings and along with a crowd of 717 (it was a tenner to get in), we got treated to a pretty good spectacle for a Mickey Mouse cup tie. Morecambe set off playing like Brazil, taking the lead through Adam Mayor who capitalised on a defensive mistake.

The League One visitors had chances to make it two, but they were to ultimately pay for that when Finn O’Boyle fired home a powerful effort to equalise.

It looked like the game was going to go to penalty kicks (you get an extra point after a draw if you win on penalties….), but then in the sixth minute of added time Miles Welch-Hayes prodded the ball home from a corner. It mattered not though, in the final shake up it was still Morecambe who progressed to the knock out stages.

It was really interesting to see the progress of the club though, and what’s been achieved in a short period of time. Yes, maybe mirrors of Salford City without the media circus, and yes, progress has been blighted by jealousy and cynicism in other quarters, but as I said, it’s ok having cash, but you need to know how to spend it!

Going back full circle though, maybe now us old Midland League advocates fully appreciate that the old Yorkshire League was a better league than many gave it credit for. Although at the time no one would have predicted any of the clubs, not least Harrogate, would have made it as far as they did, so I suppose the next question would be, who is next in Yorkshire to step up and exceed all expectations.

I’m really struggling to answer that one, on behalf of the People’s Republic…….