Mike Morris hails Harrogate Railway's current crop as on par with the most successful side in the club's history

The veteran centre-half has had a couple of spells away from Station View since making his debut back in 2013, but has pretty much seen it all during what has been a fairly turbulent period in the NCEL Division One Outfit’s history.

Plucked from Sunday League football by Billy Miller, the 34-year-old was a member of the most successful Railway side ever as an eighth-placed finish was achieved in Northern Premier League Division One North - the eighth tier of the English pyramid - during the 2014/15 campaign.

It was all pretty much downhill for the club from that point onwards as heavy defeats and relegations became the norm until Mick O’Connell took over the managerial hot-seat in early 2020.

Since then, things have steadily been heading in the opposite direction, with Railway currently challenging for promotion back to the NCEL Premier Division having won 20 of their 31 league matches this term.

Needless to say, Morris – who remains a serving soldier in the British Army – is loving his football again under O’Connell and his assistant Josh Walsh, and is able to draw a number of comparisons between the current crop and Miller’s history-makers.

“I’ve been here a long time now, it’s coming up to 10 years and this team is right up there with the best I have been a part of, both on and off the pitch. I feel as if we are just going from strength-to-strength,” he told the Harrogate Advertiser.

“There are a lot of comparisons with that Billy Miller side that did so well in the Evo-Stik League. Back then we were up against some big clubs with massive budgets like Salford City, Darlington and Scarborough and we held our own.

“This year when you look at the top teams in this division like North Ferriby and Hallam, our budget is basically nothing compared to them, however there’s very little between us.

“The other similarity is that nobody gave us a chance under Billy. Nobody thought we’d be anywhere near the top end of the table, and I reckon that was probably the case at the start of this season.

“But now that we’ve been fourth for a while I think other teams respect us. No-one is turning up and expecting to beat us, so the transformation under the current management team has been unbelievable.”

Whipping boys for too many years, Morris says that the changes which O’Connell, Walsh and coach Paul Clayton have implemented over the past couple of seasons have made a huge difference.

“If you go back a few years, things were absolutely awful here, we were getting beaten every week and if it wasn’t for Covid I think we’d have dropped out of the NCEL,” he added.

“So all the credit goes to the management team and the coaches for the job they’ve done. Mick, Walshy and Paul Clayton all bring different things to the table and it works really well.

“The club is run so professionally now, the training is really good. We do in-depth analysis sessions, which is something I’ve never done before.

“In pre-season, we did so much fitness work, we must be one of the fittest sides in the league and that makes a massive difference.

“The standards they set are sky-high and you can see the benefits of that.”

Not known for his goal-scoring exploits, Morris is currently enjoying something of a purple patch, having netted in each of Railway’s last three matches.

His most recent strike came late on in Saturday’s 5-0 drubbing of basement boys Teversal after Marcus Day had hit a hat-trick.

“I am pleased with the goals,” he continued.

“I hadn’t scored for ages, well over a year I think, and now I’ve got three in three, which I don’t think anyone can believe.”

Morris and his Railway team-mates return to action this weekend when they visit Nostell Miners Welfare (3pm).