Town troops deserve their shot at big time

HAVING moved across to our sister publication The Non-League Paper when The FLP went into hibernation in March, I’ve got to know plenty about Harrogate Town.

- John Lyons

And what emerged is a story of a club with solid citizens and a humble soul. Those virtues usually stem from the leadership at a club and manager Simon Weaver embodies them.

A rugged centre-half who was released by Sheffield Wednesday as a youngster, he spent a large chunk of his playing days in Non-League. And he actually applied for the manager’s job at Harrogate having seen it advertised in The NLP.

“I knew I wanted to be a manager from my mid-20s,” he recently told NLP editor Matt Badcock. “But it came earlier than I expected and I probably wasn’t quite ready at the time. I’ve certainly had to take many punches to the face, but I’ve been quite prepared to get back up.”

Successful

And that, in a nutshell, is a big part of why the Yorkshire club have been so successful since Weaver took the reins back in 2009.