Giant Alligators in the stars. Or, We’re really very, very sorry, Harrogate Town.
Harrogate Town vs Newport County, The Envirovent Stadium, EFL League Two, 27th February 2024.
‘Bolognese for tea tonight?’ Liz asks.
‘Hold that thought, because I’ve had an idea,’ Ben replies.
‘Does that idea involve mince?’
‘No. Well, possibly. It involves pies …’
And in short, that’s how we end up watching Harrogate Town play Newport County on a cold Tuesday night in February.
Ah, Harrogate. Famous for tea and toffees, Georgian elegance and THAT crime fiction festival that EVERYONE goes to. Everyone except us, that is. We were probably too busy watching Grimsby play Swindon or something. Harrogate’s well-heeled charm doesn’t seem the obvious place to find a football club, but there it is. Out beyond the famous greensward of The Stray, past the Pump Rooms and the refinement1 of Betty’s famous Tea Rooms2 nestled beside the general hospital, it’s Harrogate Town FC.
As we trek towards the ground, across the Stray by starlight, we look upwards.
Phoebe, who is accompanying us this evening, owing largely to the promise of a pie, points at the triple stars of Orion. ‘What’s that one?’ she demands.
‘That’s Orion’s belt. There’s his sword, look, those stars hanging down. And those ones there, they make his arms and legs, see?’ Ben explains.
‘You’re joking aren’t you? That’s rubbish! Those stars look nothing like a bloke with a sword.’3
‘Well, you have to remember, there was no Love Island in those days. No Snapchat. No…(Ben struggles to think of another contemporary form of young persons’ entertainment)...Hollyoaks. Just the stars.’
They certainly didn’t have Harrogate Town vs. Newport County to entertain them.
But first, the pies. If you’ve read our earlier blogs, you’ll know that pies are important to us. A long time before we began this blog Ben and Phoebe first visited Harrogate Town, and they came back bursting with the news of amazing pies and Yorkshire Tea. Ever since, Liz has been keen to visit. The pies do not disappoint, nor does the tea, but since visiting Stockport - well, let’s just say that pies from now on shall be rated as 0 (i.e. n0 pies), to 5tockport - the high five of the pie chart4 - with Harrogate coming in at a 4.5 on the scale. We will be amazed if anywhere has pies better than Stockport, though Harrogate’s are pretty damn good. Honorable mentions should, at this point, also go to West Ham United and Fulham, whose pies were both 4.5/5 tremendous too. Although we admit that further, more comprehensive research is required. Delicious research.
Speaking of which, here we must include the semi-regular feature ‘Phoebe’s Phood Corner’ - she rates the pies as 3/5 (the score was lower than ours owing to “too much mint sauce”) but the overall culinary experience is improved by the cheesy nachos which are “very good.”
Ben and Phoebe take a look around the Envirovent Stadium and note some improvements since their last visit. Everything looks fresher; there is a new club shop and a new stand. It’s clean, neat and tidy and well signed. Harrogate Town has the feel of a club that’s cared for - in fact, as we sat down with our pies, they’re handing out awards to a team of ‘Golden Boys’ who look after the club in their spare time; fixing things and tidying. The stewards are helpful and polite, and we’d also notice at half time that there’s a liaison person who brings cups of tea to some of the fans in wheelchairs - we’ve never seen that before! So top marks for a well-cared for stadium, with people who are passionate about looking after it. The only problem is … well … this sounds churlish … but it doesn’t smell right. It’s too … clean! We miss that instant hit of ‘football smell’ - the cool green smell of the pitch, with a hint of burning burger and the occasional whiff of an illicit vape.5
During his pre-match wander, Ben makes a new friend in the form of a 7-foot alligator. Because it’s an evening game there aren’t many kids around, so Harry Gator (get it?) Harrogate’s mascot is short of people to interact with … and Ben steps up to the plate for a selfie! It’s not often in life that you get a hug from a giant alligator, is it?6
Now, before we get to the game itself, it would seem to be a good time to introduce you to the concept of The Taylorson Curse. You see, it’s rare that we visit a neutral ground without apparently dooming the home team to an ignominious defeat. Stand-out instances of The Curse in action include confirming relegation for both Wigan and Accrington Stanley on our only visits to both, but there are many more. In fact, the stats are quite something. When visiting a neutral ground, we will be invariably supporting the home team. We’ve had a look back through the results, and it appears that we’ve and we’ve overseen:
Wins: 4
Draws: 5
Losses: 12
"That's not too bad" you might think. Now, let us factor in ‘The Middlesbrough element’ - these are away games where we are there to support The Boro. If you count our first visit to an away ground to support Boro, and combine it with the stats for when we are at a neutral ground supporting the home team it becomes:
Wins: 16
Draws: 13
Losses: 32
If we were a football team we’d have been relegated twice over! So, what happened to Harrogate Town on the night of the 27th February is probably entirely our fault and we’re very, very sorry.
We’d seen Harrogate play only weeks earlier at Stockport, where they had seemed like a solid side, so - curse aside - we had no reason to expect … um … what we can only describe as carnage.7 Harrogate never seemed to get out of first gear all evening, and Newport had already had a couple of chances before Will Evans converted a penalty to make it 0-1 on 31 minutes.
The away fans had come a long way, and are keen to make themselves heard ‘Harrogates a sh*thole, we want to go home,’ they sing.8
Two minutes later, despite Harrogate ‘keeper James Belshaw making a fantastic save in the build-up, Offrande Zanzala makes it 0-2. And the Newport lads in the stand, many of who look as if they’ve gleefully skipped school for the afternoon, rush the fence separating them from the home fans to ‘give it the big ‘un’. In turn, the Harrogate lads9 look as downcast as if they’d been held back for extra lessons.
As half time comes and goes the temperature drops rapidly. The home team can do nothing to warm the crowd, as Newport take a 0-3 lead when Zanzala bags a second, and then it’s 0-4 when Seb Palmer-Houlden scores the goal of the game, cutting in and curling a lovely shot into the bottom right-hand corner of the Harrogate goal.
In the commentary box, a jovial Count Arthur Strong sound-alike is reading out the goal scorers. Two of the goals are announced as having been scored by Notts County, who aren’t even playing here today … George Thomson nets a 78th minute consolation for the home side, but there’s no realistic hope of a miraculous comeback. It’s very cold, so we decide to leave just as injury time is announced. Under the starlit sky we wend our way back across the dark expanse of The Stray. Orion and his mates are still up there, looking down on the Envirovent Stadium way below. Perhaps, after all, we should have spent the evening trying to make pictures out of the stars and saved Harrogate Town from a grim defeat.
‘Look, those stars right up there, see what I mean? If you squint, don’t you think they look a little bit like a rather forlorn giant alligator?’
Our thesaurus is running out of synonyms for ‘elegant’.
Of course, we can’t actually see any of these things, because by the time we arrive in Harrogate it’s dark.
Those may not have been the exact words she used but we don’t want to get banned from Substack…
Can a pie chart have high point? Discuss.
There is a possibility that since the stadium is sponsored by a company that eliminates bad smells, that they’ve had a go at the stadium …
Not without suffering serious injury or death.
The kind of carnage that might have ensued if you really DID hug a giant alligator.
We think it’s irony. We hope it’s irony! I’ve been to Newport and I liked it very much (home of ‘the other’ transporter bridge!) but it’s fair to say it’s not as picturesque as Harrogate! Ben.
Fluffy haired and attired in matching navy blue North Face coats.