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So there we go. After 106 years, Harrogate Town are in the Football League! Enjoy the rest of the weekend – ta-ra.
Neal Ardley tells Sky that he knew Harrogate would come out fast, but his team didn’t live with it. He acknowledges that better team won, but laments that too many of his players “didn’t turn up” and were nervous. He needed a perfect second-half performance to resolve things, and his team were better but not better enough. Now, he needs to look forwards, and is targeting automatic promotion next season.
Jon Stead takes his medal, finds his cut-out of Jordan Sinnott, who was killed so tragically, and poses for a photo, tears in his eyes. My eyeballs might be sweating.
He goes on to say they do a lot of work on shape, and have tightened up at the back. If you have “honest runners”, he says, you can afford to leave two players up the pitch, and 4-4-2 suits his players, who have pace, aggression and attacking intent.
“Ecstatic … it hasn’t really penetrated my brain yet,” says Simon Weaver. He goes on to praise “a group of honest lads”, and says that a lot has changed in the 11 years he’s been at the club, and going full-time gave them the impetus to do what they’ve done.
As for Notts, they’re in a much better position than previously. They’ll be bullish about sorting things next season, and with decent reason. A little more quality and variety in their passing, and they’ll go close.
Falkingham does a little shuffle-turn, Jordan Henderson-style, and gives his lift some absolute welly. He can barely believe what he’s accomplished.
The players fish medals out of a tray, while the Notts players and manager stand there applauding #classytouch #oldskool
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He goes on to say that Town ought to have finished the game in the first half, but when they didn’t and Notts scored, their ability to manage the game allowed them to hang in there and strike back.
Falkingham, the Town captain, struggles to find words. “It’s an emotional time,” he says. “We’re a bunch of lads that have been hungry … we’ve never played in the Football League, the majority of us … we’ve been building for…
Read More:Harrogate Town 3-1 Notts County: National League play-off final – as it happened
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