Farsley Celtic, 2023/24
Vanarama National League North
The aging defence got a youthful infusion as I brought in 19yo CB Charlie who simply wasn't good enough for the youth ranks of a bigger team, and local boy Nan who interestingly enough was once a youngster at our rivals Guiseley, 15 minutes up the road. With one of the old heads staying on and last year's find of the season Manuel behind them, the idea was to build a solid defensive foundation. I also managed to bring in Homer on a free after Boro released him to me after last year's excellent loan spell on the right. I also brought in The Cuban, a Scouser who'd been playing half an hour down the road at Halifax - or not playing, rather. The fact he could play all along the front meant I could tempt him with regular game time, as cover for my existing players if nothing else. A few loans rounded out the transfer action to provide general depth.
Cups were crap, nothing much to say there. We made it to the FA Cup 4th Qualifying round before eventual Vanarama National champs Chesterfield dumped us out on a replay. FA Trophy we got to the third round before The Cuban's former side punished us for picking him up - and naturally, he played like hot garbage. In fact the only notable thing about this game was it went to penalties and took nine of them from each side for Halifax to triumph 5-4. The league was my main focus - the board wanted survival to establish ourselves as a regular at this level, and I was pretty confident we'd do that easily. As it turned out, I should have been even more confident - for most of the season, we were actually fighting for a playoff spot.
Closing in on the final two games of the season, we held on to 7th position and the final playoff spot by one point from Basford United. Eventual champs South Shields beat us 1-0 on their patch, but Basford lost as well. Last game of the season was at home to King's Lynn and Homer decided to celebrate by getting a straight red for two footing someone 15 minutes into the game (the FA gave him an additional two weeks, as well!). Considering Basford had gone 2-1 up it was backs to the wall from this point on - The Cuban smoked the Kings Lynn defence twice on the break however to secure a 2-0 win and book our playoff spot. We were drawn against Kidderminster for a game 3 days later and the tired legs of the squad couldn't hold out and we dropped to a 3-2 loss, despite a good effort from 17 year old youth product Urkle, a hot prospect striker I hope to give more game time to next year.
All in all, the board and fans are super happy - the only blot on the copybook is I'm losing Manuel to a Polish club on a transfer. The eight and a half thousand pounds we'll get (with possible additions down the track) is at least a club record, but he's going to be very hard to replace.