The Social Scene

Harlow Hill  3  Bramhope  0

Harrogate & District League – Premier Division

Admission / Programme – No / No

Harrogate, I have to say I do like the place.

I’m not a huge fan of trying to navigate it in a car during rush hour to be fair, but other than that, yeah, it’s a reyt nice place, and one I have to say I’ve only ever visited infrequently.

Regular readers and patrons of my blog will recall I managed to combine a work trip with a Papa Johns Trophy game at Harrogate Town earlier in the season, which in itself was the first time I’d been back to the town for many a year. Thinking back, other than a handful of visits to Town and I think a solitary visit to the slope at Railway down in Starbeck, the only other game I’ve seen in Harrogate would have been at a school where Hampsthwaite United played when they had a spell in the West Yorkshire League.

Ironically though, as I took a left at the lights on a glorious May evening, just short of Town’s Wetherby Road ground, I recognised the pub I went in prior to the game at Hampsthwaite, and then a few hundred yards further up the road was indeed the St John Fisher School where I watched the game. Bored yet? No, ok, well if you carry on along Hookstone Road past Hornbeam Park railway station, you stumble upon Oatlands Park on your right, which when I arrived was completely devoid of any signs that a football match was meant to be taking place.

Look, this is the Harrogate League, I wouldn’t expect to see a pack of stewards two hours before kick off being briefed as to their jobs, but I though we might see some goalposts up? Anyway, undeterred, I parked on a side street and had a wander into the Oatlands pub for a liquid refreshment.

The area of Harrogate I found myself in was a very nice place to be, to the South of the town centre the housing stock looked on the expensive side, and when you have an M&S as your local shop, you know you’ve pretty much cracked it as a neighbourhood.

Suitably refreshed I thought I’d better take a gander to see if anything was going on, nothing had appeared online about the game being off or owt, so thankfully when I crossed the road I could see the goalposts being dropped into the holes, and various players from both sides milling around the dressing room areas. It was game on, so what was it like?

Well, it’s a public park, but it’s a lovely setting for a game of football. A kids play area and the dressing rooms adorn the main road side, while behind the goal to the West is a grass bank that leads up to some terraces of houses. Looking across from the dressing rooms you have houses that back up to the park, while behind the opposite goal are some trees set back from the pitch.

All very nice, but on the downside, it did look as though the pitch had been mown earlier that day, and huge piles of grass cutting were left sat on the pitch, and as much as the club tried to remove them, they had an impact on the quality of the game.

It was a league game, but the two sides were due to meet again the following Saturday in a Cup Final at Ripon City, and with Harlow Hill already having won the league, I wasn’t sure just how competitive an encounter it was going to be.

To be fair, both sides gave it a good go but the hosts always seemed to have the upper hand, especially with Bramhope finishing the game with ten men when Tom Landale saw red. Two goals from Dan Brown (no, not the author), and one from Tendai Machama saw Harlow Hill record a 3-0 victory.

A reasonable number of people rocked up to watch it, and many a dog walker passed by and spent a few minutes watching the proceedings. It was kind of one of those nights, take the dog out, watch a bit of footy, have a pint outside the pub, pick up some chips on the way home, oh yes, life is good in downtown Harrogate!

I did read an online report the following day about the game, and in it someone questioned whether Harlow Hill would be staying at Oatlands Park next season when they join the WYFL. As long as they stay in Harrogate I don’t mind, I feel I integrate into the local social scene rather well…..