Jack Emmett's top five Harrogate Town memories

Here, the 27-year-old, who played 229 matches for the Sulphurites and helped them to two promotions, picks out his top five moments in yellow and black.

1. Harrogate Town 2 Boston United 1. January 17, 2015.

One game that really stands out is playing Boston United in January 2015.

I’d come back to the club the previous summer after my time at university but I hadn’t really played much. We were struggling that year and on a really bad run at the time. The squad seemed to be growing all the time with a lot of new lads coming in and I hadn’t had a look-in for a few weeks.

I was working for an accountancy firm at this point and the night before the game there had been a staff party over in Sheffield.

I didn’t expect to be playing against Boston on the Saturday, but I didn’t drink. I’d still had a late night though.

I got a lift back to Harrogate on the morning of the match and a lot of snow had fallen. When we got to the ground, the pitch looked frozen. All the lads thought there is no way this game can be on, we were just waiting to get sent home.

But it did end up going ahead and the gaffer decided to throw me and all the other young lads in from the start.

He’d stuck with experience to try and get us out of the rut we were in, but it wasn’t working so he tried something different.

So it was myself and Jordan Thewlis on the wings in a 3-5-2 and he also chucked Ryan Fallowfield, Andy Gascoigne, Louie Swaine and Cecil Nyoni in from the start.

I remember being so nervous in the changing room, but it worked. Fal and Gazza both scored early goals and we went on to win the game against a Boston side who were flying at the time, if I remember rightly.

I played really well, so did all the young lads - and the team as a whole. We then went on a run and turned over Solihull Moors and AFC Fylde away and beat Chorley, all of whom were doing really well.

It was just a group of young lads who all got thrown in and did brilliantly. It was a bit of a turning point for us as a club and it was also the game that really cemented my place in the team.

2. FC Halifax Town 0 Harrogate Town 1. August 29, 2016.

We played Halifax away in National League North and I scored the only goal in a 1-0 win.

That was a special moment for me. I don’t score many and I think that is the best goal I got for the club. It was a decent finish from quite a tight angle and obviously it won us the game.

I scored with a couple of decent finishes over the years, which is quite strange because it’s not as if I was banging them in in training every day.

The Halifax goal was the best strike, but in terms of significance, there was one at home to Barnet which helped us to our first-ever win in the National League after promotion which I also really enjoyed.

3. Harrogate Town 2 York City 0. September 23, 2017.

When we played York in National League North it was the first proper derby game I had experienced.

We’d played Halifax and Bradford Park Avenue in the past and they had been billed as derbies, but they weren’t really, there was no real edge about those matches.

There was certainly an extra intensity about that York game at home, however. I think they brought something like 800 fans so the atmosphere was incredible and you could tell there was a lot riding on the result.

York were the favourites, the bigger club with the history and a huge fan-base. I think they were expected to beat us, so to beat them was pretty cool.

All their fans were down one side of the ground and I was playing on the right so for one half I got a lot of stick from them.

I enjoyed the experience though and playing in and winning a proper derby was brilliant. To then go and win at their place later in the season just made it even better.

4. Harrogate Town 3 Brackley Town 0. May 13, 2018.

It’s hard to pick between the two play-off final wins, but if I had to choose then I would probably have to go for beating Brackley to get out of National League North.

The weather was perfect, the game played out perfectly and we achieved something that we had been aiming for for so long in our own ground in front of all of our fans.

Obviously I had a lot of family and friends in the crowd, but the noise from the stands that day was like nothing I’ve ever experienced at Wetherby Road.

The semi-final against Chorley had been quite edgy because we fell behind, but this went quite smoothly by comparison.

Knowlesy [Dominic Knowles] scoring early and then getting another one before half-time settled us right down and filled us with belief. To be honest, at 2-0 we knew that we were going to go on and win that game.

Because play-off finals at that level take place at the home ground of the higher-ranked team, that kind of experience was pretty unique.

I don’t think many clubs are going to get the chance to play for promotion in front of their own fans too often.

We all went out after the game, but because it was a Sunday night, town was dead. So it was really just everyone from the club and then Town fans, so it was quite nice to mix with them in the bars and share that experience.

As a day, it just couldn’t really have gone any better.

5. Harrogate Town 3 Notts County 1. August 2, 2020.

Beating Notts County at Wembley was also amazing, but it was a very different experience to the play-off final win two years earlier.

We went down the day before and walked down Wembley Way and that really added to the experience in terms of the build-up.

Just going into the stadium, walking out onto the pitch, the changing rooms, being in the same place where Arsenal had played Chelsea in the FA Cup final the day before, it was all unreal.

To play the way we did was incredible. Honestly, I think we could have been 4-0 up at half-time, we had the chances.

It was such a buzz watching us taking it to them the way we did in such a big game, because on an occasion like that, you don’t know if you’re going to freeze.

I felt so nervous after Callum Roberts scored for County just after half-time, but once Jack Diamond made it 3-1 I knew that it was going to be our day.

Winning promotion to the Football League with my hometown team is something I am very proud of.