New Teams Next Season

Should be an interesting league next season: Guiseley and Altrincham will be staying with us, North Ferriby (Ryan Kendall, Gary Bradshaw) will be joining us from East Yorkshire, AFC Telford (with Liam watson as manager), Barrow and possibly Stockport County, unless the demise of Aldershot changes things. We are also just 90 minutes away from having FC United of Manchester as rivals next season...third time lucky? Oh, and Leamington (maybe another Brackley). Lets hope Brackley 'do the business' against Halifax, one in the eye for our 'friend' from Halifax and keeps another local team in the league. Interesting times, as they say.

Railway's league interesting as well, Darlington 1883 ()great name!) and Scarborough Athletic joining the 'mighty' Rail next season. Should be at least two games at Station View worth seeing

looks like a strong league next season getting in some top quality players is a must or its going to be a long hard season, vital we get a good start, top goalscorer needed lack of goals cost us this year

I would just like to say that this season 2012-2013, has seen Harrogate Town score the most league goals they have scored in a Season in the Conference North. Town scored 72 League Goals this season, 6 more than their previous high of 66, which was achieved in 2005-06 and 2008-09 seasons.
They have now competed for 9 Seasons in the Conference North and +22 has been their best Goal Difference, which again has been achieved this season, +17 being their previous best in 2006-7 Season.
I do feel that this was maybe down to playing 10 games in 27 days in April and they played 6 games against sides who were in and around the Play Off mix so they had the potential to be low scoring tight games, as it was proved.
Chester were the Leagues Top Scorers with 103 League Goals-18 of these were scored in the 4 games against the bottom 2 sides, Hinckley and Droylsden. Altrincham were the 2nd top with 100 Goals and they scored 25 of them against H&D.IN A 42 GAME SEASON 25% OF THEIR TOTAL GOALS SCORED WAS IN 4 GAMES!! Halifax 3rd with 86 goals of which 19 were scored against H&D. Guiseley 4th with 83 Goals-16 v's H&D. Brackley 5th with 76 Goals with 14 v's H&D. Bradford PA 6th with 75 Goals 20 v's H&D. Town 7th with 72 Goals 11 v's H&D.
So whilst I agree that 6 goals in the final 10 games wasn't good enough for the chances created it still hasn't been too bad a season for Goalscoring and Major Surgery to the Squad isn't required just a few tweaks in the right place.

but the point remains "we need a goalscorer" next season i know it the fans know it and Simon knows it, we didn
t get to the playoffs because we could not score against teams we should have buried you can quote facts all you like but the truth is there to see

Whilst a goal scorer would be great it will be damn expensive also and the going rate in this league for a top top goal scorer is probably beyond our means..I think a good start would be to play our players in the correct positions perhaps find a quality centre mid who will drive the game forward, great quick feet, and has the heading power of Nowakowski.......With the right balls delivered to Chibs, I know he can do a job..........try nowakowski at right back pre-season and lets see Samuels put into right mid as he will get beyond defenses.

[quote] Whilst a goal scorer would be great it will be damn expensive also and the going rate in this league for a top top goal scorer is probably beyond our means

so looks like mid table then

Top quality goalscorer will be expensive, but we DO have a very rich owner/chairman, so its more a question of the kind of budget he will allow Simon to have. The groundworks are presumably costing multiples of thousands, so maybe £400 (?) a week for a quality goalscorer is not that out of the range of possibilities. I do agree with rangerider that, much as I like Chib and Beesley, we need at least one, better two new strikers.

By the way, some tasty friendlies coming up...only about 2 months to go

I would love to see a Knowles type striker but I think £400 a week wouldn't even be half of what a top clas striker would demand.....Not sure I would want a player in Knowles position coming in and then buggering off again shortly after so i don't think we have much options.

And yep im on the countdown until the first friendly, hopefully the birth of a daughter wont disrupt my pre season preperation ha!

Just because we may or may not be able to afford an established quality striker doesnt mean we cannot sign one. With the right scouting you can pick a striker who has performed well in lower leagues or have a look at the release list when it comes out and pick young strikers with obvious ability like Knowles from that.

Cant disagree with htown here. There are quality players out there, who will fit within the club's wage structure, and could score 20-30 goals a season.

There is also the option of a season long loan for a decent reserve striker, who could bang them in at this level.

On the other end of the stick, I wonder when we will find out about our released list?

According to the Advertiser, Simon will be speaking to all the players individually this week. He does say he will be keeping a lot of last seasons squad...which is good news as far as I am concerned. I'd be perfectly happy to see pretty well everyone back, with just the addition of (you guessed it) two quality strikers! Wonder if Craig will be signing for a bigger team? Apparently, he Adam Bolder and Shane are on 2 year contracts.
When you get to my age you shoudn't be wishing your life away, but roll on July 13th