A former manager in Harrogate’s Claro League is looking for football players from the late 1970s and early 1980s to take part in a reunion.

Harry Teggin, who managed the Claro Catholic team between 1967 and the 1983/84 season, is organising an event at the Bilton Club on Friday, September 23.

After realising that he had begun only seeing some of his fellow footballers at funerals, he decided a more positive event was needed.

Mr Teggin said:

“I’d had enough of that really. Let’s have one where we’re not saying goodbye.”

He is hoping to reach players from multiple clubs in the Claro League from the period such as Belford, Gluepot and Harrogate Phoenix.

At the time, many teams had formed around pubs or youth clubs.

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The Claro League ended in 2017 after a drop in interest levels in Sunday league football. Only six teams had applied to play in the following season.

Some teams applied to play in West Yorkshire but others were disbanded.

It marked a decline from the 1970s when the league was one of two in the town and had five divisions,

Teams came from as far away as Wetherby and Tadcaster.

‘We’ve always been a close-knit team’

When he started out as manager at Claro Catholic, Mr Teggin said his job mainly involved getting players home from nights out and setting up the pitch on a Sunday morning.

But friendships formed and still endure today. He said:

“We’ve always been a close-knit team and we always had good camaraderie with the other teams.”

Some of the players, Mr Teggin revealed, later went on to play for Harrogate Town.

The former manager urged anyone who was involved to contact him and come to the event.

Veterans of the Royal Engineers, some of whom served in the Falklands War, will be in Ripon this weekend to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the conflict.

They are former members of 11 Field Squadron, which used to be part of the 38 Engineers Regiment based in the city.

On Sunday, between 10.45am and 11.15am a short wreath laying ceremony will take place at the War Memorial in Ripon Spa Gardens.

No Ripon-based Royal Engineers died in the war, but the event, open to anyone wishing to attend, will give the chance to reflect and remember Royal Engineers from other parts of the UK who lost their lives fighting Argentinian land sea and air forces.

Before then, an informal reunion will be held tomorrow between 2pm and 7pm at Ripon Bowling Club on Bondgate Green.

Those wishing to attend the reunion at the bowling club are asked to contact Stan Darbyshire for further details and to register their attendance. He can be contacted on email at duffbudgie11@outlook.com or by phone on 07878 980630.

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The Royal Engineers have had a long and distinguished presence in Ripon, recognised by the fact that the Regiment was awarded the Freedom of the City in 1949.

This gives them the right to hold an annual Freedom Parade through Ripon.

Last year’s parade was held in September, when more than 200 soldiers took part in the march with a band playing and bayonets fixed, before a service in their honour was held at the cathedral.

Medals parade at Claro barracks

Mayor Sid Hawke meets the medal recipients.

Over 150 individuals from 21 Engineer regiment were issued HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medals for serving for over five years.

The medals were presented by Councillor Sid Hawke, the Mayor of Ripon with Major Daryl Murphy, the regimental second-in-command and Major Neil Chalmers, quartermaster, also handing out medals.

With most of the regiment deployed overseas in Poland and Cyprus, it was a greatly reduced medals parade. Those deployed had already received theirs last week.