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19
Jul 2024
No 'stroll in the park' for Leeds United clash, says Harrogate boss
Harrogate Town boss Simon Weaver has pledged not to make it a “stroll in the park” when his side faces Leeds United in a pre-season clash tonight.
The Whites will be making the trip to Wetherby Road for the first time since 2017.
A bumper crowd is expected at the Exercise Stadium, including a sold out away end for Leeds fans making the short trip up the A61.
The fixture comes as part of a packed pre-season fixture list for Town, which includes the likes of Sheffield United and Middlesborough.
Speaking to the Stray Ferret ahead of the match, Weaver said he wanted his side to be competitive against the Championship side.
He said:
We definitely do approach it like any league game. We’ll look at what we expect Leeds to play system wise and try our best to be competitive.
Obviously, they were nearly in the Premier League so they have got so much quality in their ranks. But what we don’t want to do is just make it a stroll in the park for them. There’s professional pride among us all that we want to show.
Weaver added that the choice of fixtures in pre-season, including Leeds and Sheffield United, were a chance for people in the area to come to the Exercise Stadium to see Harrogate play higher opposition.
He said:
We missed out when we had the 3G pitch for a few years and no one wanted to come and play us, because teams would look at our pitch and think ‘oh no’. It was kind of a pre-historic mental thing where 3Gs were seen as the old Luton Town and QPR pitches.
It was nothing of the sort. We had the best injury record in the National League, it was fantastic. But that view wasn’t shared by other teams.
So we missed out and we just want to make up for it. We want to bring a lot of football to the area during pre-season. It will hopefully give an opportunity for Leeds fans in the area to see Leeds. There’s a lot of Middlesborough fans in the area and Sheffield United fans. They’re great fixtures.
Weaver added that the calibre of fixtures were also a chance for his players to go up against “high end players” and learn to “think quicker” on the ball.
Town go into the game off the back of a 3-2 defeat to League One outfit Huddersfield Town in their opening pre-season game.
Meanwhile, the game will be Leeds’ first pre-season fixture played in front of fans ahead of a training camp in Germany.
Ahead of the new football season, Stray Ferret subscribers can look forward to a two-part interview with Harrogate Town manager Simon Weaver in the coming weeks on his 15 years in charge of the club.
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