From the Terraces: Fightback showcases the spirit in the Harrogate Town camp

Harrogate Town supporter Dave Worton's latest weekly fan column
Dave Worton cheers on his beloved Harrogate Town. Pictures: Matt KirkhamDave Worton cheers on his beloved Harrogate Town. Pictures: Matt Kirkham
Dave Worton cheers on his beloved Harrogate Town. Pictures: Matt Kirkham

If you had viewed this week’s 1-1 draw, solely through the lens of the football results, you might think that the visit of Crawley heralded the dropping of another two much-needed points at home

Thankfully, you would only be viewing half the story, as football isn’t quite as cut and dried as that, and I would venture that it was a good point gained under extremely testing circumstances.

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Town, in particular, can take a lot of encouragement from the manner of their second-half comeback against a very energetic and stubborn opposition.

Jack Muldoon celebrates his late leveler against Crawley.Jack Muldoon celebrates his late leveler against Crawley.
Jack Muldoon celebrates his late leveler against Crawley.

The afternoon started decently enough, but it soon became apparent that the Red Devils had come with a plan to win the midfield battle through high intensity pressing and, faced with that, Town looked slightly off the pace.

The first goal, when it came, was a result of these circumstances; being disastrously self-inflicted as a result of too many Harrogate players switching off and not being decisive enough in action, against a sharper and more switched-on opposition.

It was nothing more than our visitors deserved and they could easily have gone in more than one up at half-time. I found myself wondering whether I shouldn’t bother turning up to watch the second half, so torturous the first half had been, but turn up I did as I’d already paid for it. Thankfully, so did Town.

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Following, a few choice words and a substitution from Paul Thirlwell, our players upped their intensity after the break, but not before a great James Belshaw double-save kept us in it.

How much the wind now being in Town’s favour helped is something that’s very hard to gauge from watching on TV but, gradually, we began to dominate proceedings.

The players started to move the ball quicker along the ground, driving at a retreating defence, looking dangerous and finding space on the wings, as my daughter Molly and I cheered them on. Not that they could hear us, of course.

Just as it looked as if Town were going to do everything except equalise, they won a throw-in near the corner flag. Up stepped recent substitute Dan Jones to bullet one of his unstoppable long throws into the six-yard-box; chaos ensued, as fellow replacement Aaron Martin headed on, and Jack Muldoon completed the job.

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Never have I seen such a devastatingly accurate long throw-in all my time watching the game. Opposing teams are soon going to have to start putting the ball out for corners instead of throw-ins if Jones is on the pitch.

Jones then nearly won it in stoppage-time, his swirling cross from the left flying over a bemused Crawley goalkeeper and bouncing back off the woodwork.

It wasn’t to be, however, and the visitors hung on for a point, having originally looking as if they were going to waltz off with all three.

The manner of the comeback certainly shone a bright light on the spirit in the Town camp, and I couldn’t be prouder of the players’ second half performance.

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Confidence could have slid to rock bottom after the dire first-half showing and our recent sticky patch of form.The fact that it didn’t, will stand the team in good stead as they take a well-earned breather ahead of the trip to Leyton Orient on Saturday.

On a slightly different note, next week sees the release of my book ‘For The Love Not The Glory’: the unlikely tale of one man and his daughter following Town into the Football League.

It’s a compilation of all the columns I’ve written for this Harrogate Advertiser column over the last two seasons, including a new introduction and some bits that never made it past the editor’s scissors.

It’s 344 pages long, with 30 pages of colour photographs from our adventures, and you can buy it for just £10 plus postage (free delivery in Harrogate and Knaresborough) from www.ledastraypress.bigcartel.com.

There you go, I’ve sorted Christmas for you. I’ll have details of one or two local stockists in due course ... once they’re open again.

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