For Rovers fans making the trip to Harrogate on Tuesday 7th December, you’ll be going to one of the EFL’s newest members. Wetherby Road (the Envirovent Stadium) has a capacity of about 5,000. Away supporters are housed in the Envirovent Stand, alongside one of the touchlines, with a capacity of about 850 (see the stadium plan below).
Coaches leave The Fully Charged New Lawn at 13.35 for the journey (13.50 Sainsburys, 14.00 Stonehouse). Journey time is about 3 hours 30 minutes by road. Rail travel from Stroud is about 4-5 hours and not viable unless you plan to stay overnight in Harrogate.
The stadium is quite central so parking looks tricky. The station is a 15-20 minute walk from Wetherby Road.
The game will feature the two highest goal-scoring sides in League 2. Harrogate have scored 33 goals, FGR have scored 34 goals this season.
The Sulphurites are 7th in the table with 30 points from 19 matches (10 points behind Rovers having played one game more). They started this season with a bang, with just one defeat in their opening 11 matches. Since then their form has tailed off a little with 4 losses, 2 wins and 2 draws in their last 8 games. They have more points on the road (17) than they have from their home games (13).
Harrogate have a trio of goal-scorers in Muldoon, Armstrong & Pattison who have scored 21 goals between them this season.
They usually line-up as a 4-4-2 with Armstrong and Muldoon leading the line.
After beating Wrexham in the 1st round, Harrogate were away at Portsmouth in the 2nd round of the FA Cup on Saturday 4th December. Harrogate won the game 2-1 with their winner coming in the 95th minute.
Jack Muldoon, Harrogate’s 32 year old striker (number 18) has 6 goals this season.
Durham-born Luke Armstrong (number 29) is the Sulphurites top scorer with 9 goals to date.
Alex Pattison (number 16) is an attacking midfielder with 6 goals this campaign.
One Rovers player who knows Harrogate well is Josh March. Josh March was signed by Harrogate on loan from Rovers in January last year. Josh was brought in by Harrogate on loan from Rovers as a back-up to Jack Muldoon and scored several times for Harrogate during his stay in Yorkshire.
Simon Weaver became manager of Harrogate Town in May 2009. Irving Weaver, his property magnate father, then bought the club in 2011. In 2011 the club had sold 7 season tickets for the season (they’re up to nearer 1000 now). At that same time they only narrowly managed to escape relegation from the National League North due to financial irregularities elsewhere.
Three years ago they became a full-time professional team, and in May 2018 won promotion to the National League by beating Brackley Town 3-0 in the play-off final.
Two years later, in August 2020, Harrogate were in the National League play-offs after the season was curtailed. They went on to beat Notts County 3-1 in the final at Wembley and won promotion to the EFL for the first time in their history – the EFL’s newest member!
A new stand had to be built to increase capacity to 5000 and bring their Wetherby Road ground (the Envirovent Stadium) up to EFL standards. They played their first few EFL home games at Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium while their own synthetic 3G pitch was being replaced with grass.
Harrogate Town have been around for over 100 years (since 1914 in fact) but, until this season, have always played non-league football. Harrogate are known as the ‘Town’ or the ‘Sulphurites’ due to the town’s famous sulphur springs.
Harrogate is in North Yorkshire, just east of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. For 3 consecutive years (2013-2015) polls voted the town “the happiest place to live in Britain”. The spa waters helped to establish Harrogate as a tourist destination and a very wealthy town. It is generally considered to be the most expensive place to live in the North of England.
