My experience at Elland Road as Harrogate Town do themselves proud against Leeds Utd

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My experience: Leeds United versus Harrogate Town, Third Round, FA Cup

The magic of the FA Cup is belief.

Belief that your team can defy the odds and beat a bigger team.

Belief that this is not a ridiculous notion despite your side lacking the track record to indicate otherwise.

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Harrogate Advertiser reporter Graham Chalmers outside the West Stand at Elland Road before an exciting FA Cup clash. (Picture contributed)Harrogate Advertiser reporter Graham Chalmers outside the West Stand at Elland Road before an exciting FA Cup clash. (Picture contributed)
Harrogate Advertiser reporter Graham Chalmers outside the West Stand at Elland Road before an exciting FA Cup clash. (Picture contributed)

By lunchtime on Saturday it feels like half of Harrogate is setting off for Elland Road to watch Harrogate Town's FA Cup historic clash with Leeds Utd.

It’s not quite planes, train and automobiles, more a case of cars, trains and, in the case of myself and 600 other supporters, bus.

The mood at the Cedar Court Hotel facing the snow-covered Stray where we are due to be picked up by Stanningley-based family-run coach hire company J&B Travel is a mix of excitement and trepidation.

Excitement at being part of 4,000 Harrogate Town fans about to experience their side’s biggest-ever FA Cup moment, trepidation about the prospect of facing the Championship leaders on their own turf.

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Harrogate Town line-up at the start of their FA Cup encounter with Leeds Utd in front of a crowd of more than 35,000. (Picture contributed)Harrogate Town line-up at the start of their FA Cup encounter with Leeds Utd in front of a crowd of more than 35,000. (Picture contributed)
Harrogate Town line-up at the start of their FA Cup encounter with Leeds Utd in front of a crowd of more than 35,000. (Picture contributed)

Only 18 miles separate Harrogate and Leeds by road but, in other ways, the two clubs are far further apart.

Beneath the buzz as we file onto the fleet of ten coaches outside the Cedar Court is an unspoken fear.

What if Town are simply outclassed by a team two divisions above them with a long pedigree of greatness?

And a second thought, can we still enjoy the occasion under the bright lights of Elland Road if the worst does happen?

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Harrogate Town players walk to salute their fans in the West Stand at Elland Road at the end of their FA Cup Third Round match against Leeds Utd. (Picture Graham Chalmers)Harrogate Town players walk to salute their fans in the West Stand at Elland Road at the end of their FA Cup Third Round match against Leeds Utd. (Picture Graham Chalmers)
Harrogate Town players walk to salute their fans in the West Stand at Elland Road at the end of their FA Cup Third Round match against Leeds Utd. (Picture Graham Chalmers)

I first saw Harrogate Town in the flesh in 1985 when Goole Town came to contest the West Riding Cup at Wetherby Road.

In those days, the ‘Sulphurites’ were a lowly non-league club in the Northern Counties East Football League.

At the same time, the ‘Mighty Whites’ were struggling to get out of the old Division Two.

So much has changed for both clubs over the past 40 years.

Both clubs have come so far to get to this moment in the third round of the FA Cup in the glare of the TV cameras.

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Once our convoy has arrived in Leeds and we have all disembarked and slowly made our way through security at Elland Road amid a wintry landscape, we join the other 35,584 fans inside the ground.

Harrogate Town’s giant-killing heroes are about to face the biggest crowd of the club’s 100-plus year history.

I’ve never seen so many Town supporters in one place – more than 4,000 of them packed together in the corner of the West Stand facing the Jack Charlton Stand and the Don Revie Stand.

I’ve also never seen so many children at a football match.

The next generation of Harrogate Town fans are here in force with their mums and dads.

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There’s a party atmosphere on the whole as befits a match between two teams that share the same fans to a degree, something reflected in the half-and-half scarves brandished by many of the travelling support around me; Harrogate Town sharing wool space with Leeds Utd.

The air of brotherhood disappears the moment the whistle is blown for kick-off.

I’m taken aback by the noise of the Leeds Utd fans until someone in the neighbouring seat points out it’s the Harrogate Town fans whose lungs are filling the icy air.

"We're the yellow and black army. We’re the yellow and black army.”

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Town sound like a big club and it quickly becomes apparent in the opening moments of the first-ever competitive between Leeds United and Harrogate Town that they are intent on playing like one.

No nerves, no fear, lots of hard work.

Still, in the first half, Leeds Utd enjoy the bulk of possession – and luck.

"Penalty”, I shout out the moment Town striker Josh March hits the deck in the box after a clumsy challenge from United defender Joshua Guilavogui.

My voice is swallowed up by the vast stadium and, in the absence of VAR, the referee waves play on without the merest thought.

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Still, reaching half time against Leeds Utd with the score at nil-nil is a major achievement in itself, especially as the home side had scored three goals the previous weekend against Hull City, themselves a far bigger club than Harrogate Town.

Later, after the match is over, The Guardian reports that “If FA Cup victories were awarded for effort, then Harrogate Town would have eased into the fourth round at Leeds.

"Unfortunately for them, industry only gets a team so far in football.”

What’s missing from that article is how close Town came to unsettling and upsetting the star players of Leeds Utd in a stirring and heroic second half.

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Just like they did against Wrexham in round one of the FA Cup, Town take the game to their opponents, their positive attacking play creating chances almost from the start of the second half.

The noise around me in the West Stand gets louder and louder.

For a short but glorious spell it feels like the game is going to tip Town’s way.

But, unlike the Welsh side, Leeds Utd do not crack.

Instead, in what has come to typify Harrogate Town’s season so far, this is the very moment when their opponents take the lead after one brief lapse of concentration in an otherwise magnificent defensive display by the men in yellow and black.

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Town’s stalwart defender Warren Burrell looks like he is going to punch the ground out of sheer frustration.

That critical moment is far from being the end of the match but, no matter how hard manager Simon Weaver’s men huff and puff, they can’t quite rattle Leeds’ imposing back line enough to find their way to the net and draw level.

At the final whistle, the feeling in the West Stand is one of “what if” mixed with enormous pride in the show put on by Harrogate Town.

Harrogate Town weren't quite robbed – even Town fans can see the differences between the two sides.

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But it’s also true that, on the biggest stage of all, they didn't quite get the rub of the green from the game or, indeed, the referee.

The gulf between Leeds Utd and Harrogate Town remained at the end.

But such was the hard-working and, at times, brilliant football played by the entire Town team to a man, that gulf shrunk considerably during a memorable 90 minutes’ football.

As Harrogate Town players walk to our corner of the West Stand with the coaching staff, they get a heroes’ reception.

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If Harrogate supporters had been deprived of their big day at Wembley in August 2020 when Town sealed promotion to the English Football League for the first time in their history, they had seen their team more than hold their own at Elland Road.

As we step back onto the bus, there is little disappointment.

The buzz of excitement we shared earlier in the day at Cedar Court Hotel is still there.

There were moments in the match, small moments, perhaps, when anything had seemed possible.

In those moments, the fans around me believed.

I, too, was thinking the same thing.

The magic of the FA Cup is belief.

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