Simon Weaver insists that he has overcome far greater challenges than the one currently facing Harrogate Town

Following a reasonably positive start to 2025/26, the Sulphurites have lost four games on the spin and hit a new low on Saturday when they were turned over on home soil by bottom-of-the-table Newport County.

That result leaves Harrogate 19th in the League Two standings, where they now sit just two points above the relegation zone.

But as the longest-serving manager in the whole of the Football League and no stranger to a survival scrap during his 16 years in the job, Weaver says he has seen it all before.

And the Town boss has moved to reassure supporters that he is confident that his team will turn things around.

"I’ve been around the block a bit now,” he said. "It is easy to grab negative momentum these days and sensationalise it. We have lost four on the bounce, but we’ve done that before and we get over it and we recover.

"That’s 701 league games I have managed now. There are peaks and troughs – there certainly are at Harrogate Town now we have gone up to this level.

"We know what we are up against in terms of size of club and fan-base but this is by no means anywhere near my biggest challenge.

"We will pick the players up, we will grit it out and we will go again. We have got some good lads, we’ve just got to make sure that they play to their strengths, and we will dig in, that’s for sure.

"This run can't continue because we will continue to plummet. But, I back us to put it right.”

Harrogate found themselves a goal down early on against Newport after Mark Oxley, making his first League Two start of the season and just his second in almost two years, parried Sammy Braybrooke’s free-kick into the path of Kai Whitmore.

He then crossed for the completely unmarked Courtney Baker-Richardson to bundle home the opener from almost on the goal-line.

Town failed to muster a response before the interval, and any hopes of them turning things around after half-time evaporated as they made a disastrous start to the second period.

Firstly, with 49 minutes gone, the recalled Tom Bradbury made a mess of trying to shield the ball out for a goal-kick and Bobby Faulkner diverted Whitmore’s low cross from the right into his own net.

Soon afterwards, the dangerous Whitmore delivered from the opposite flank and Cameron Antwi was afforded time and space to swivel inside the Harrogate box before picking out the bottom corner for 3-0.

Newport almost added a fourth through Whitmore, who headed against the cross-bar, while Oxley then did well to thwart Michael Reindorf at point-blank range.

Jack Muldoon came closest to pulling one back for Harrogate late on, though his goal-bound header from Jacob Slater’s left-wing free-kick was cleared off the line by County’s Cameron Evans.