Harrogate Town's board of directors deserve 'credit' for enabling Simon Weaver to add depth to squad

Simon Weaver applauds Harrogate Town's travelling fans following Saturday's 4-1 League Two triumph at Rochdale. Pictures: Matt Kirkham

The Sulphurites beat Rochdale 4-1 away from home on Saturday despite being without 10 first-team players due to injury, and the suspended Joe Mattock.

Centre-half Kyle Ferguson and forwards Sam Folarin and Josh Coley all slotted seamlessly into Town’s starting line-up at Spotland, delivering stand-out performances even though they have found themselves very much on the fringes of Weaver’s squad in recent weeks.

Injury and unavailability issues have seen Harrogate struggle to fill their substitutes’ bench on a number of occasions since their promotion to the Football League in 2020, and their manager admitted that they wouldn’t have been able to cope with having 11 players out all at once in previous seasons.

Sam Folarin (pictured), Josh Coley and Kyle Ferguson all started Harrogate Town's 4-1 win at Rochdale on Saturday. None of that trio had played from the start in a League Two game in more than two months.

With that in mind, Weaver added 16 new faces over the course of the summer, including four deadline-day arrivals, and the club currently have 26 full-time professionals on their books. With none of that number currently out on loan, there is more depth to the Sulphurites’ squad than there was during 2020/21 and 2021/22.

"I don’t think we would have managed with so many injuries in previous seasons, I think we’d have been at breaking point and we’d be looking at being bottom of the Football League and fighting for survival without the resources,” Weaver said.

"It’s credit to the board really because you don’t know your total incomings at the start of a season, so we had to push it a bit in the summer to be able to bring numbers in because we were already missing four of five lads for the first game of the season.

"We needed more players and it’s proven to be the right decision by the board because on Saturday, Kyle, Josh and Sam have come in and played fantastic roles in a really good win in a big game. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had that depth.

"So I am thankful to the board because without those resources going in to help us bring that depth in, we probably couldn’t have mustered a squad on Saturday.”

Town arrived in Rochdale last weekend 20th in the League Two standings, just above a place above their hosts and only two points clear of the relegation zone.

Had they lost, results elsewhere could have dropped them into the bottom two. But, the combination of their own victory and defeats for Colchester, Gillingham and Hartlepool mean that Weaver and his men now sit five points clear of 23rd place heading into this Saturday’s home clash with high-flying Northampton, 1pm kick-off.