January 2010

A new year may have begun, but everyone at Harrogate Town was hoping that our good form in December would very much continue into 2010. A New Year's Day meeting against Farsley Celtic at Wetherby Road provided us with our first test of the calender year. They stood at the bottom of the table after a ten point deduction at the beginning of the season, but without this, they would probably have been pretty close to where we were. Farsley opened the scoring just after the half hour mark, but this was cancelled out by Nic McDonnell's 9th goal of the season shortly before the break, and despite a late surge from us, this was the way it finished.

Just three days later we were facing Farsley again, this time at their place, in a rearranged fixture from earlier on in the season. Our fixture list has seemed to be a bit dodgy (see November 09). The game was pretty dull, and despite being a man up for the last 40 minutes, we failed to capitalise, and it ended goalless.

A trip to the Midlands was in order next, as we took on Solihull Motors, who were bottom of the league, and this time they were actually bottom. No points deductions, just poor form. However, the way we played, a neutral would've thought we were in their position. We took the lead in the 19th minute thanks to Luke Dean's first goal for the club, but things went downhill from there. Solihull equalised with a very dubious goal 15 minutes later. I was warned by the FA after my comments about the goal, which I thought (and still think) it was a mile offside. Nevertheless, the goal was given and Solihull went on to score a penalty just after the break, and add a third with 10 minutes to go. Very disappointing.

A player I'd been looking at for a while, on the advice of my scouts, was 19-year-old central defender Harry Hogarth. Ian Cox hadn't been playing too well, so I snapped the youngster up on a free transfer, and put him straight into the team to face Stalybridge a few days later. We were losing 1-0 and tried to push for an equaliser in the closing stages, only for our defence to become exposed and leak another goal. However, Hogarth impressed on his debut.

A week later we travelled to Stafford, and it was Hogarth's first goal for the club that sealed a 1-0 victory. He was named Man of the Match in what was a very convincing team performance. The final game in January lined us up against 5th placed Corby, whom we played on the first day of the season, and lost 2-0 to. It was time for revenge, and from the kick off it was clear my players were thinking this as well. After only 30 seconds, David McTiernan received the ball on the right wing and put in a low ball towards Nic McDonnell who was lurking in the area. It was McDonnell's presence that lead to Phil Gulliver putting the ball into his own net. An excellent start. Things got even better just before the interval when McDonnell's low shot hit the left hand post and rebounded into the net off a hapless Mark Osborn in the Corby goal. Nic McDonnell should've had two goals, instead he had two assists to his name. However his efforts were rewarded with two minutes left to go with a powerful finish. McDonnell was deservedly awarded the Man of the Match.

The 3-0 victory was the final game in January, and left us in 14th place. It's tight though; we're only 2 points off 8th place, which is encouraging. We do seem to perform better against the better teams, and at the minute I have no idea why.