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Walking up Wetherby Road it is hard to believe there is a Football League ground lurking around the corner. Living in the shadows of semi-detached houses and three-storey blocks of flats sits the Exercise Stadium, where watching Harrogate Town this season has been an exasperating experience.

The mix of being the lowest scorers in the league, with a paltry 29 in 40 games, and conceding the most shots, has left them mired in a relegation battle. There have only been three home victories all season but there were reasons for optimism after an upturn in results and performances, prior to the visit of promotion-chasing Notts County.

Starting the day in 23rd, only a point from safety, was a success for the Sulphurites. They were unbeaten in the first four games of the season, winning two, but collected a disastrous four points in 20 matches covering more than four winless months. This brought pressure on the manager Simon Weaver, with many supporters wanting a change. An unbeaten five-game spell in February brought nine points and a victory away to relegation rivals Tranmere recently further proved the battling qualities.

The Sky Sports cameras and Neil Warnock, sat in one of the seven stands, were in attendance to witness a microcosm of Harrogate’s campaign. The ground was packed, boosted by the early kick-off, start of the Easter holidays and lack of top-tier football available. Junior Sunday league teams were the flag bearers while Harry Gator, the club mascot, whose foam dentures were as sharp as the Harrogate attack.

There was plenty of endeavour and promising but no end product, as the hosts performed well between both boxes but fell short once more. Notts County’s £1m striker Alassana Jatta showed the difference between the clubs with the goals to settle the match, 2-0. At the other end, Harrogate had 36–year-old Jack Muldoon, whose career has taken in stints at Brigg Town and Sheffield, summing up the disparity.

Harrogate are the only side in the bottom seven to have not changed manager, while Barrow are on to their fourth. One key reason behind continuity is the dugout club is owned by the manager’s father, Irving Weaver, and sacking your son is unlikely to make family get-togethers enjoyable.

The Weavers’ collaboration took the team up from National League North to League Two, where they have survived for five seasons and has helped cement Weaver Jr as the longest-serving manager of the current EFL clubs. Weaver has been in the job since 2009, more than seven years longer than Pep Guardiola, the second longest-serving in England.

“I have to wear a few hats,” Weaver says. “I’m in a unique situation where we’ve got family within the club, namely the chairman, and managing a budget, appeasing the fans behind me, trying to get players developed, and trying to survive at the same time. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it comes with my territory. You don’t want to go home to your parents having lost the game, but managing the budget pretty well, it is a tough balance to achieve.”

Nineteen new signings have arrived since the end of last season and 36 players have been used across the league campaign for a team that suffered an injury crisis, with 12 senior players out for the long term at one point. Recruitment has moved towards targeting youth; centre-back Cathal Heffernan spent time on the books at Milan, was brought in January as part of the more youthful recruitment. He can’t have anticipated that his professional debut would come for Harrogate after joining from Newcastle, and he was given the toughest examination by Jatta. “We always say it’s not the ceiling coming to play for us,” Weaver says. “Go and play for someone higher and earn bigger wages.”

James Belshaw, who left in January for Notts County, brought back memories of happier times. This was the first of four home games in the final seven, with Bristol Rovers and Colchester having little to play for, and Barnet potentially out of the playoff picture by the final day, Weaver knows there is plenty of opportunity to get out of this.

As within any small club, there is a wider picture; the average home attendance is a shade under 3,000, and there was well over that in attendance on Saturday, and home support has increased by 32% compared to three years ago. Planning permission for a new training ground has been applied for, in the hope of moving away from the Sunday league facility in Leeds they currently use. Being in the Football League has brought sustainability to a club that was playing in the seventh tier at the turn of the century for a club punching above its weight.

“We’re all proud of the journey we’ve been on,” Weaver says. “But it’s not the time now to reflect on all of that. It’s on to the next game, trying to keep our pride intact by winning the next few games and staying up. If they told me 10 years ago you would be six years in the Football League, I probably wouldn’t have believed you, and I’d have bitten your hand off but it doesn’t make it any easier.”