Harrogate Town's Jack Emmett ready to seize unexpected moment on the Wembley turf

Yet, on Sunday afternoon, he and his Harrogate Town team-mates will take on Notts County at the home of football in the National League play-off final.

At stake is a place in League Two for 2020/21, an achievement that would represent another huge step forward for the upwardly mobile North Yorkshire outfit.

Emmett played a starring role as Harrogate were promoted out of National League North in 2017/18 and has continued to feature fairly regularly during two seasons spent challenging at the top end of the fifth tier, though the 26-year-old still can't quite believe that he finds himself just one more victory away from the Football League.

"To be honest, this is crazy,"

"Over the past few years the club has gone from strength-to-strength and we have passed lots of milestones, but going to Wembley to play for a place in League Two is next level.

"I never thought this would happen to me. I have played alongside lads who have appeared at Wembley, but I've never thought to myself 'one day I'll get there'.

"I've always just kind of felt like it was a place reserved for higher level teams and players, but now we are going there. It's amazing."

That Emmett seems so blown away by the prospect of a trip to Wembley is understandable when you consider that his route into professional football was not exactly conventional.

Born and raised in Harrogate, the former Harrogate Grammar School pupil had trials at Leeds United and Doncaster as a child but was rejected on the basis that he wasn't big enough.

He progressed from Town's under-19s and into their first team in 2011, then, having completed his A-Levels he accepted a place at Loughborough University to study accountancy and spent two years playing the game alongside his fellow students.

The versatile midfielder ended up re-joining Harrogate in the summer of 2014 and has not looked back since, turning his back on the career in accountancy he was seemingly destined for before eventually signing a professional contract at the CNG Stadium in 2017.

“After the initial knock-back I didn’t envisage becoming a professional footballer, but I’m very glad about how it has worked out," Emmett added.

“Now, I just can’t wait to walk down that Wembley tunnel and out onto that pitch where so many big players have played and big games have taken place.

"I'm looking forward to everything about the experience. It's a dream come true, everyone is excited but we're trying not to get too carried away and lose our focus."

Emmett revealed that it felt as if a weight had been lifted from the Town players' shoulders after they successfully came through Saturday's semi-final showdown with Boreham Wood.

"We were a bit edgy and tense before the semi-final," he said.

"We'd spent four weeks waiting to play that game and obviously there was a lot riding on it.

"We had three months off then five weeks training for the match, but with no friendly. It was bizarre. We'll never play in a game like that again in terms of the unusual build-up.

"There was a lot of relief in the camp after Saturday's game. We'd made it over the first hurdle. Everyone was over the moon."

One person who helped to ease the tension in the Town camp ahead of last weekend's crunch clash was England head coach Gareth Southgate.

A local resident and friend of Harrogate boss Simon Weaver, he spent more than an hour talking to Emmett and his team-mates.

"The best thing about it was what he told us about preparing for big games and dealing with pressure," the midfielder said.

"We were all a bit on edge due to what was at stake, and then someone comes into the room who has prepared a team for a World Cup semi-final. The pressure of that is different level, but he explained to us how he got England's players ready and then suggested to us how we go about our own preparation.

"Personally, I think that what he said was worth its weight in gold."