Harrogate Town unable to make emergency goalkeeper loan, with former England international Rob Green ruled out as free-agent option

With Mark Oxley having recently broken his hand and academy stopper Harvey Giles ruled out with Covid-19, the Sulphurites would have been in big trouble had regular number one Pete Jameson picked up an injury or been sent off.

Fortunately, Jameson and Town made it through their latest League Two outing unscathed, with Simon Weaver’s team serving up arguably their best performance of the season to date as they ran out 3-0 winners.

With Oxley expected to be sidelined for around six weeks, the goalkeeping situation at Wetherby Road is however far from ideal. Giles should be back available for selection in the not-too-distant future, but he has no experience of senior football.

Unsurprisingly, boss Weaver has been exploring his options with regard to bringing in some temporary back-up for Jameson, though he isn’t overly-confident of being able to find an immediate solution.

“It’s a nightmare,” he told the Harrogate Advertiser.

"Ox doesn’t need an operation, but it’s still several weeks out. It was hard on Saturday because Harvey Giles, our youth team goalkeeper, has had Covid.

"We’ve been hoping for a negative test result, but that didn’t happen so we were short, simple as that.

"We are not allowed an emergency loan, so we might have to look around to see if there are any free agents, just for a month or two. We’ll have to scour the market, but I don’t think there will be too many good ones available.”

Town are not permitted an emergency loan because they still have one senior goalkeeper available for selection.

Thus, it would take for Jameson to get injured, suspended or called up for international duty for the Sulphurites to be given permission to bring in what Football League (EFL) rules class as a ‘professional goalkeeper’.

A ‘professional goalkeeper’ is defined as a player who has been named in the starting XI on five or more occasions for a Premier League or EFL club in any competition excluding the Papa John’s Trophy.

As such, academy prospect Giles is not classed as a ‘professional goalkeeper’.

If a club has no professional goalkeepers available and want to sign an emergency loan player, they must submit evidence surrounding the unavailability of their other keepers to the EFL.

The period of any emergency goalkeeper loan lasts for a period of just seven days, inclusive of the starting date and finishing date, but can be renewed for seven days at a time.

Premier League clubs are not permitted to send goalkeepers on seven-day emergency loans into the Football League.

Due to the sudden need to find a free agent, former England stopper Rob Green immediately sprung to mind due to his Harrogate connection, however Weaver says that the ex-Leeds United and West Ham custodian is not an option having recently relocated.

"Rob Green has moved from Harrogate to overseas, to Spain, I think, so we couldn’t even try and ring him up and ask the question,” he added.

"So it’s a tough one, but it’s just the spot we find ourselves in at the minute.”