February 2010

No sooner had we won 3-0 against Corby, we were on the wrong end of the same result against Alfreton, a team who we really should've beaten. Sonny Cobbs was brought off after half an hour after he fractured his ribs, an injury which ruled him out for two months. After going into the break goalless, Alfreton managed three second half goals to earn them the win.

We travelled north to Cheshire three days later, to face play-off contenders Vauxhall Motors. A goal after only two minutes gave them the lead, and despite being a man up for over 85 minutes of the game (Vauxhall's James Holden was sent off after four minutes for a two-footed lunge on Simon Heslop), we failed to make them pay, and disappointingly, lost the game to that solitary goal.

It's fair to say that at this point morale was pretty low. It wasn't the same as earlier in the season when we'd been playing pretty well, but losing; no, we were actually playing quite bad and then getting the results to prove this. However a trip to AFC Telford, who at the time were sitting in 20th place, had the potential to raise our spirits if a victory was achieved. We went into the game without Nic McDonnell, who twisted his ankle against Vauxhall, meaning Luke Dean started up front on his own. The game, as the commentator described it, ended in a goalless "bore draw".

Gainsborough were our next opponents, and more injuries came our way. Luke Dean, once again playing ahead of the ankle-twisted McDonnell, ironically twisted his own ankle, ruling him out for a month, Simon Heslop gashed his leg, and Danny Rowe fractured his arm. Unfortunately I had to send Rowe back to Stockport, as he wasn't able to see a Harrogate specialist due to the fact he was on loan. To add insult to the literal injury, the game once again ended in a feeble 0-0 draw.

As if things weren't going bad enough for us, our next game was against Gloucester City, leaders of the Blue Square Conference North. Brilliant, eh? However, we battled until half time and managed to keep the scores goalless. It looked as though we'd handed the victory to our opponents on 57 minutes, when Leon Scott was adjudged to have held back a Gloucester attacker, and a penalty was awarded. However Neil Mustoe's penalty was saved by Gareth Stewart, and we still had a chance in the game. Ten minutes later, we were given our own penalty when Lawrie Dudfield was brought down. Alex Smith stepped up, and slotted the ball away for his first goal in Harrogate colours. Our celebrations were short-lived though; they equalised five minutes later, and ten minutes after that, grabbed the winner from a free-kick.

Overall, February was a poor month, as we only managed 2 points from a possible 15. It still leaves us in 15th place though, but we're slowly but surely slipping away from a possible top-half finish. I believe we can still do it, it's just whether the players do. It's a bad time to have an injury crisis, I'll tell you that for free.