WE’VE ALL GOT THE SAME GOL!
BROTHERS Ashley and Gavin Connor had a vision for Golcar United when they took over as joints managers in 2014. The Huddersfield-based club had been plugging away in the West Riding Amateur League for most of its history, but the pair saw an opportunity when others didn’t.
“People thought we were nuts thinking about taking the club up to Non-League,” said older brother Gavin, 42. “Eventually people jumped on board and it became a dream became reality.”
Ashley, 38, had joined the club as a player the previous year before moving into a player-manager role alongside his brother.
They missed out on the title in their first year by a point and reached the Huddersfield FA Challenge Cup final the following season.
Three campaigns of going close eventually brought their first title in 2018 and Challenge Cup glory as Ashley hung his goalkeeper gloves up on a high.
The following year they repeated the feat as discussions about turning semi-professional and entering the National League System became more serious.
“Golcar was probably one of the worst grounds in the league to develop into NonLeague standard,” Ashley, who played for the likes of Harrogate Town, Ashton, Mossley, Ossett Town and Albion, told The NLP.
“The West Riding League was disbanding so it was either move sideways to the West Yorkshire League or go upwards. We spoke with the North West Counties League who were brilliant and told us what we needed to do.
“The committee and the backing the club has made it happen. The time and effort people put into the club is just absolutely immense. We’re really grateful for that.
Improvements
“We’ve always had ambition to take a local amateur team up a level to be semi-professional. We both played the majority of our junior career at Golcar. I had two great coaches Dave Craddock and Mal Johnson, I’ve got back in touch with Mal since being at the club and he is probably the hardest working volunteer here. Clubs like ours wouldn’t survive without people like this.”
The list of improvements to the Skye Direct Stadium in recent years is almost endless which includes the installation of a clubhouse and bar, a 100-seater stand, floodlights, fencing, new terracing including cover, toilet block and levelling of the side-sloping pitch.
“If you saw what the ground four years to what it looks like today you wouldn’t believe it,” said Gavin. “There’s no major money man, it’s all done by volunteers who are prepared to work hard.”
The local community are backing the club too with crowds maxing out the 300-capacity Covid limit this season following figures of up to 700 last term.
Dynamic
They’ve had plenty to cheer with Golcar in promotion contention in their first season before it was made null and void.
“We kept a lot of the squad from the amateur days which has been brilliant and they’ve bought into it, and added some players with experience of this standard,” said Ashley.
“When we’re visiting teams it’s great, we’re not playing on park pitches anymore, we’re playing in proper grounds.
“We train twice a week now, the standards and everything have had to be a lot higher.
Gavin added: “We turned up on the first game of last season not knowing if we were going to win 10-0 or lose 10-0! But gone are the days you can turn up 30 minutes before a game. There’s a lot more thought and preparation that goes into things.”
Ashley admits he’s the ‘bad cop’ of the pair but the dynamic of joint bosses works perfectly.
“A lot of the time we’re on the same page, we don’t fall out over football,” said Gavin. “We’re open and say what we want to say, it makes it easier. There may be times when we disagree but by the end of the conversation we get to an agreement.”
The duo accept this season has a good chance of being made null and void again, but are still focused on taking Golcar towards the Northern Premier League.
“We look at teams around us, Brighouse Town and the facilities they’ve got and we’re probably not far behind,” added Gavin. “They’ve done it and gone from Step 6 to Step 4 and held their own. I don’t see us being much different.”