Harrogate Town open to offers for out-of-favour defender Will Smith

The 24-year-old is fully fit again following a torrid time with injuries in recent years but finds himself behind defensive colleagues Anthony O’Connor, Rod McDonald, Joe Mattock and Warren Burrell in the pecking order.

Smith has been absent from both of the Sulphurites’ first two match-day squads of the new season and Simon Weaver confirmed to the Harrogate Advertiser that he would consider both permanent and loan approaches for the player’s services.

"There are four lads in front of Will who are doing well at the minute and so his path is blocked at a stage in his career where he needs it not to be,” he said.

"Although Will is still young for a centre-half, he is getting into that middle part of his career where he needs to be playing. He needs games for the sake of his development, and obviously he wants to be playing regular football.

"There has been a bit of interest over the summer, in one instance it was regarding a loan, another was about the possibility of a longer-term move.

"His agent said that we might be getting an enquiry from a Football League club, but that was a couple of weeks ago and it’s gone a bit quiet.

"But it has got to be the right move for Will. From our point of view, we need to balance the squad and we don’t want to have too many players in the same position, but it’s important for Will that he goes somewhere that he is going to be valued and get minutes, not to a club where he’ll end up as a stocking filler and only play if there are injuries to others.”

Smith spent the back end of last season on loan with Scunthorpe United in the National League and has not played a competitive match for Harrogate since rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament away at Northampton in April 2022.

In total he has made 95 league and cup appearances for Town having joined the club from Barnsley in 2019. Thirty-nine of those games came during his first year at Wetherby Road, a campaign which saw the Sulphurites promoted from the National League via the play-offs.

He has scored six goals in Harrogate colours.