Harrogate Town Away (Or home?)

As the crow flies, Wetherby Road (Or the Exercise Stadium as its known these days) is probably around 200yds from my house so it’s strange to call this an away day but here’s my blog for the day.

Firstly, we chose to drink in Knaresborough before the match. A medieval town 3 miles down the road. It has a castle overlooking the river Nidd and a history that dates back many years before “ Harrow Gate” as it were for its reference to the entrance to a field, but more importantly to us, all the pubs are situated within falling distance of each other, rather than being spread out like in Harrogate.

We dropped on a team from the Athersley Reds. A sound set of lads and lasses who were a credit to Tarn and welcomed in every tavern. It was nice to meet Dennis Walmsley’s son and Grandson. He was a good bloke.


Then up to the Empress for more ales and where reunions were had with Andy (Springvale Red) and the Cudeth Reds.

And so to the game. For the first 20 minutes, it was all us and capped off by a great opener from Shepherd. A bullet header from a corner. He looked very calm in possession, defended well and for me, has to start as first choice centre half alongside Roberts.

The game then got a bit scrappy and Harrogate Town had the better of half chances. They should have actually drawn level when gifted a chance after around 30 minutes when we p!shed about with the ball in our area and were dispossessed but thankfully their striker Hill shot towards the moon rather than at goal.

On the stroke of half time, DKD found Dizzy and he showed his class by dinky the ball over Oxley in goal to double our lead.

Now this brings me on to McGoldrick. Goal aside, he was the best player on the park. Never gave the ball away, never wasted a pass, always found space and his goal was sublime. That summery was from my mates who were in the Harrogate Town end and I agree with them. He’ll get 15-20 goals this season and similar assists.

What I was encouraged by was that we always looked to play the ball forwards as early as possible without playing the long ball. It looked much more of a defined game plan than passing it back and forth across the defence then a long hopeful punt in to no man’s land. Already, it was better than the dross we’ve been served under the last couple of managers.

When Farrugia went off it didn’t look like a foul from where I was stood. More that he just slid after the challenge in to the fencing. The problem with Harrogate Town is that it’s one of those grounds that the crowd are too close to the pitch. Good for the fans but not the players. In fact, a player unfortunately died a few years ago at this ground when he went head first in to the old barriers that they had. More needs to be done for their protection.

Late on, Cooper got down well low to make the only serious save he had to make during the 90 minutes before at the death Yoganathan curled a left footer in top bins to ,are it 0-3. Probably the best goal he’ll ever score and a shame it won’t be on a bigger stage.

Post match drinks followed at Harrogate Brewery and at least I won’t have the ridicule of my my mates when out for a pint tomorrow.

 

Great report, but i presume you were standing near your flag. The Farrugia incident was right in front of us and he was blatantly shoved by their player. As you say - it could have killed him, particularly with the precedent. I rarely lose my rag at games but i'm not proud to say i totally saw red and gave him a load of abuse. It was a disgraceful challenge and he knew exactly what he was doing.

 

I was stood on the side terracing and it definitely looked a dodgy, needless challenge. Farrugia hit the hoardings full on in the face at a rate of knots. Looked well nasty but could’ve been worse.