Harrogate Town opinion: Stevenage FC display shows that Sulphurites are still searching for happy medium

Stevenage kicked-off and played the ball back to their goalkeeper, who lumped it high up field, where it hung in the air for a second before boomeranging towards the halfway line.

And so the tone was set for the rest of Saturday’s League Two encounter between Harrogate Town and visiting Boro.

There was virtually none of the excitement of recent-ish home performances on display in what would prove to be a fairly lifeless first period, but there were a number of mitigating circumstances.

Stunned by the manner of last week’s defeat to fellow strugglers Colchester, Suphurites boss Simon Weaver had reverted to three centre-backs and two defensive midfielders in an attempt to nullify the visitors’ reputation for delivering the ball into the area as quickly as possible at every available opportunity.

A loan recall and injury had shorn Town of their speedy full-backs Jaheim Headley and Kayne Ramsay, while a swirling, unpredictable wind had blunted the expected Stevenage onslaught.

We saw a fair bit of possession, but rarely had the numbers forward to cause problems, whilst the visitors were content to see the first half out without threatening much themselves.

In five previous encounters between the teams, Town had failed to score. Two previous clashes at the EnviroVent Stadium had ended goalless and this gave every impression of heading that way too.

Having not taken advantage of the wind, often over-hitting long balls to no one in the 1919 end, I was fearing a difficult second half for Weaver and his men.

And, although the game quickly descended into a mirror image of the first period, with the home side looking pretty comfortable for the first 15 minutes, the visitors duly scored with their first shot on target.

We then had to hang on in there for a further 15 minutes as the wind threatened to wreak havoc with high balls into Pete Jameson’s area.

“Don’t be too precise, put it on the suckers!” bawled visiting manager Steve Evans to his goalkeeper from the touchline (give or take the odd letter). He then went on to hurl further expletives towards the referee.

Meanwhile, Town struggled to retain an attacking presence with the half-way line seemingly a distant proposition for the players, let alone the ball.

I’d just finished a protracted discussion with the folks stood next to me about how it all seemed hopeless from both a current and historical point of view, when Danny Grant received a rare ball midway into the attacking half in front of us.

We roared him on as he slid the ball to an overlapping Alex Pattison who chipped a delightful cross onto Luke Armstrong’s head at the far post. The net duly bulged and we’d witnessed a miracle out of nothing.

Shortly after, Grant almost made it two, and we were back to wondering how a team as ordinary-looking as Stevenage could be sitting second in the table, 10 points clear of fourth. How they knocked Premier League Aston Villa out of the FA Cup just six days earlier seemed even more of a mystery.

The answer of course lies in the shape of Evans, who worked wonders at Crawley and Rotherham and is now doing the same this season with a club the size of Harrogate.

Despite the poor nature of the match in difficult windswept conditions, it was a happy ground at the final whistle, the home crowd having witnessed a gritty comeback.

The point could prove to be a valuable one for Town come the end of the season and it was a solid, switched-on defensive performance in the main. New signing, Anthony O’Connor, looked assured and it was a relief to see the dependable Joe Mattock returning from a brief injury absence.

Boss Weaver was cagey in his post-match interview when quizzed on whether he’d be reverting to three centre-backs permanently. And he was right to be.

Barely five matches ago he was proudly announcing that we were going to play to our attacking strengths, but that was before we shipped three goals each to Hartlepool and Colchester.

Needs must, and his more defensive tactics for this match certainly paid off, but we don’t want to revert to the impotency of the early part of the season in front of goal.

The holy grail must surely be to find a happy medium.