Harrogate fans to miss out on Wembley again
HARROGATE TOWN fans who had to sit out the club’s first trip to Wembley last year will also miss out on the second, with the FA Trophy final played behind closed doors.
The Trophy is a competition for non-league clubs but last season’s tournament is still to be completed, with the Sulphurites due to face Conference South side Concord Rangers in the final.
The FA had hoped to play it after fans were allowed back into stadia but Harrogate keeping alive the chances of reaching the League Two play-offs and the demands on Wembley, it was not possible to play the game after the planned May 17 return of limited numbers of spectators.
Instead it will be played on the May Day bank holiday Monday, two days after Harrogate’s league game at home to Cambridge United. The FA Vase final between Consett and Hebburn Town will be played the same day.
This season’s Vase has been put on hold because of the latest lockdown, which clubs below Conference North/South level were not allowed to play through, but will resume with the third round proper on April 10, and be played to a May 22 conclusion. Again, the 2020-21 Trophy final will be played on the same day.
All four finals will be shown live on BT Sport.
Harrogate reached Wembley for the first time in their history in August 2020, when they beat
Notts County in the Conference play-off final to win promotion to the Football League, which they had never before played in.
Striker Josh March’s season and possibly his time at Harrogate is over after a knee injury picked up in Tuesday’s win over Colchester United.
An MRI scan revealed a partial tear of the lower aspect of his medial collateral ligament.
The 23-year-old is on loan from Forest Green, where he will return for rehabilitation.
■ Steve Bruce has insisted nobody at Newcastle needs to be told how serious the club’s Premier League plight is.
The Magpies face Aston Villa tonight, just a solitary point outside of the bottom three.
Bruce said: “We’ve understood that for a while now. We all don’t want to be down there, we simply haven’t won enough football matches not to be. It’s quite simple: we have to understand what’s before us and get enough points to make sure we stay here.”