2023-24 Prediction League; Game 4 v Harrogate Town (home)

Div3North · 16-08-2023, 22:06

Accrington Stanley

V

Harrogate Town

2023/24 Prediction League; Game 4 v The Sulphurites (home)

Starter for Ten; Harrogate Town AFC - not to be confused with Harrogate Railway Athletic FC - eventually won promotion to the EFL on 2 August 2020 at Wembley Stadium when they faced Notts County in the Bananarama play-off final and won 3–1, with goals by MF George Thompson (who’s still at the club), defender Connor Hall (now at Colchester via Port Vale), and Jack Diamond, now a Black Cats winger. But what happened for the first-ever time in the EFL at their Wetherby Road ground on 5th April 2021 (the last day of the tax year)?

Harrogate is a spa town - which doesn’t mean that people shop at Spar - in the county of North Yorkshire, England. Historically it was in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and it’s a tourist destination whose visitor attractions include its spa waters and RHS Harlow Carr gardens: 13 miles away from the town centre is the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Harrogate grew in the 17th century out of two smaller settlements, High Harrogate and Low Harrogate. For three consecutive years (2013–2015), polls voted the town as "the happiest place to live in Britain”. Harrogate spa water apparently contains iron, sulphur - hence the club’s nickname - and common salt, and the town became known as 'The English Spa' in the Georgian era, after its waters were discovered in the 16th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries its 'chalybeate' waters (containing iron) were a popular health treatment, and the influx of wealthy but sickly visitors contributed significantly to the wealth of the town.The town motto is ”Arx celebris fontibus”, which means "a citadel famous for its springs"

In 1870, engineering inventor Samson Fox perfected the process of creating water gas, in the basement laboratory of Grove House. After constructing a trial plant at his home on Skipton Road, making it the first house in Yorkshire to have gas lighting and heating, he built a town-sized plant to supply Harrogate. After Parliament Street became the world's first road to be lit by water-gas, newspapers commented: "Samson Fox has captured the sunlight for Harrogate." After donating the town's first fire engine, and building the town's theatre, he was elected mayor for three years, an unbroken record - which probably would have been contrary to the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act, except that the Act didn’t pass into law until 1883 ……….

Harrogate is twinned with Barrie in Canada, Wellington in New Zealand, and Bagneres-de-Luchon in France; “Bagneres” translates as “baths”, for those who didn’t already know ……. Harrogate is also “home” to Jim (“Downton Abbey”) Carter, Lioness Rachel Daly, Donald Simpson Bell and Charles Hull (who both won the VC), David Nobbs (who wrote Reggie Perrin) and silent-film actor Courtney Foote

So your second Starter for Ten, then: in 1886, Sheffield Wednesday were one of the stronger football sides in the country …….. so why did half the team decide that they wanted to leave, and play elsewhere?

People in the town of Harrogate had tried to put together a football team as far back as 1907, but it took until 1914 for Harrogate A.F.C. to be founded. They were entered into the Northern Football League that year, and were set to play their home fixtures at the County Ground, but the First World War meant all matches were postponed. The team disbanded in 1932, and were re-formed (note - “re-formed”, not “reformed”) in 1935, known as Harrogate Hotspurs (they’d been founded in 1919 and changed their name to Harrogate Town after football returned at the end of the Second World War). After some footling around, they became founder members of the Northern Counties East League in 1982 and later the Northern Premier League, and were also founder members of the Conference North in 2004. They won the Bananarama North play-offs in 2018 and then a place in the Football League for the first time with victory in the 2020 National League play-off final (see above). Harrogate finished their first Football League season in 17th place, and in 2021–22, they did enough to survive in the League again, finishing 19th (53 points from 46 games and a GD 0f -11) and reached the third round of the FA Cup for the first time.

You’ll know that their manager is the only current League manager who has continuously served the one club for longer than Professor Coleman; to be fair, most of Simon Weaver’s service since 2011 has been in non-League, and in addition his father Irving Weaver is the club Chairman (“Nepotism Rules OK!”)

Last season they finished 19th again with 52 points and a GD of -9; they won 12, drew 16 and lost 18 ……… they did Bratfud (away) in the FA Cup before Hartlepool in turn did them 3-1; they lost 1-0 at home to Stockport in the EFL Cup, and they ran 3rd in their Troffy group behind Everton u12s, and Morecambe on goals scored ………Five left in the summer, including veteran defender and NI international Rory McArdle (after a twenty-year career at Rochdale, Aberdeen, Bradford and The Iron) …………. eight signings (no loans yet), including GK Lewis Thomas from Burnley, two LBs (one of whom was Morecambe’s Liam Gibson and one of whom wasn’t), Scottish CMF Dean Cornelius, a striker and an AM both called Daly, Crewe CB Rod McDonald, and Rochdale’s LW Abraham Odoh

It hasn’t been a high-scoring League so far; playing in their sulphur-coloured shirts, Harrogate put one past Donnie away, conceded one to Vegan Greenpeace at home, and shipped three without reply last night at Tranmere; P3 W1 D0 L2 GF2 GA4 Pts 3 - above Stockport, Donnie and Colchester …. they beat Carlisle 1-0 in the EFL Cup, and now host Blackburn on 29th August, and they’re in a Troffy group with us, Carlisle, and Notts Forest Juniors. Self-evidently there’s no head-to-head, so bragging rights for the taking

Former managers include Neil Aspin, who played nearly 600 games for Leeds, Port Vale and Darlington, and ex Leeds Utd GK David Harvey, whose GK team mate at Leeds was Gary Sprake; GK-ing Starter for Ten; - as far as The Kop is concerned, what is Sprake’s main claim to fame?

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pm this coming Saturday, 19th August …….. this is the second of three consecutive “new” opponents (we haven’t played Barrow in the League since 1962 so technically they are) ………………. Salford Moneybags next week!

And the relevance of 5 April 2021 is that Harrogate v Port Vale in League Two was the first English Football League game to have a female referee when Rebecca Welch took charge …………… and The Great Owls’ Revolt was - this was pre-football League, of course - that the only “important” national competition was the FA Cup, and the Sheff Wed Club Secretary (Mr Wiseold) forget to post their entry! And as for Gary Sprake - well, you might remember this as well as me -

”It's a bit of a bum deal, really, when you consider he only ever really made two real cock-ups (cocks-up?) during a 12-season stint at Elland Road: leaping over the ill-fated Chelsea midfielder Peter Houseman's pea-dribbler in the 1970 FA Cup final, and throwing the ball into his own net in front of the Kop at Anfield in 1967.

Throwing the ball into your own net, though. In fairness to Sprake, the match that would come to define him was being played in difficult conditions: an inch of snow on the pitch, the ball difficult to grasp in the freezing cold and the wet. With Liverpool leading 1-0 and spraying the ball around magnificently, Leeds were looking to go in at half-time to regroup. They never had the chance. A minute before the break, Sprake advanced to the edge of his area to collect a backpass. Looking to recycle the ball quickly, he shaped to throw the ball to left-back Terry Cooper, but instead the ball slipped out of his control and flew into the far corner of the net.

Whether he changed his mind mid-throw – Cooper was being pressurised by Ian Callaghan, while Roger Hunt was sniffing around the area – or simply lost his grip has never been fully explained. The Kop serenaded Sprake with a rendition of Careless Hands, but contrary to popular myth it wasn't a mass outbreak of instinctive wit. They'd been prompted by the Liverpool PA announcer, who at half-time had goaded the hapless Leeds keeper not only with the Des O'Connor hit single, but also another contemporary chart hit, Thank U Very Much by the local beat-poet combo The Scaffold. Sprake probably felt like jumping from one.”

Good luck to everyone! ……….. Keep the Faith! ……….. And thanks for playing!