Harrogate Railway 'should have done better' in 2024/25, insists manager Rob Youhill

The Starbeck outfit began the season with ambitions of mounting a play-off push, but struggled for consistency and were unable to string enough results together to ever really be in contention for a top-five finish.

In the end, a total of 17 wins from their 42 NCEL Division One fixtures was only sufficient to see them finish 12th, one place lower in the table than last term, and some 16 points shy of fifth position.

And although they produced a number of impressive performances and enjoyed some fine results along the way, Railway’s joint-manager was ultimately left disappointed.

"It’s been a long season of ups and downs, like a rollercoaster,” Youhill said.

“It’s been peaks and troughs. When you end up finishing 12th, it’s definitely peaks and troughs.

"I imagine that all of the teams who are finishing outside the play-offs or not getting relegated are going to say the same.

"I feel like we should have done better – and I am sure that everyone is going to say the same and that we’ll do better next year.”

Youhill has already stated that the Rail will again be looking to push for the play-offs next season and insists that he and fellow manager Fraser Lancaster have a good idea of where they went wrong this time around.

"We have to learn from the mistakes that we have made as a management team, that’s all that we can really do,” the former Harrogate Town and Scarborough Athletic winger added.

"And we have made mistakes as a management team. We started off with more players than we were probably expecting to have because a lot of players had a good pre-season.

"We had a lot of quality at the start of the season, but the thing in this league – and Wombwell and Horbury are a testament to it – is you need a balance between quality and that aggressiveness and will to win because the game is played in possession and out of possession, and we can’t just be in possession all of the time.

"We have to have that balance, and so that is something that we’ll be looking for next season when we want to be pushing towards the play-offs.”