DAVE RICARDO loves talking about his only full season in charge of Hall Road Rangers. Not just because he led them to the Toolstation NCEL Division One title on the final day of the 2016/17 campaign, but because of the team spirit and camaraderie he created.
The previous few years had been torturous for Hall Road for various reasons so coming out on top at the end of the most exciting and tightest promotion races in NCEL history brought out them out of the dark and into the sunshine.
Former Beverley Town and Selby Town boss Ricardo, appointed in May 2016 to replace Martin Thacker, had gathered together an eclectic ensemble of experience and youth – with Ash Dexter, enjoying his last hurrah as a player, as the leader and captain.
The margin for error was minuscule and all the hard work paid off with Josh Batty scoring twice (the winner in controversial circumstances) in the 2-1 final day victory at Campion – a simple win or bust scenario for Hall Road as they needed three points to overtake already-finished AFC Emley who started the day in top spot.
A draw was not an option as Pontefract Collieries were expected to win at Worsbrough Bridge and they duly did to go above Emley on goal-difference.
Both games had high drama as Hall Road had Gareth Owen sent off for bringing down Eli Hey, forcing them to play with ten men for 65 minutes. The Colls faced the same challenge as goalkeeper Ben Saynor saw red in a similar minute at Worsbrough – forcing defender Jimmy Williams to go in goal.
Rangers finished with 96 points, ahead of Pontefract on 95 who snatched the final automatic promotion spot on goals-difference by just three goals (+75 to Emley’s +72) from Darren Hepworth’s Emley, who themselves were a free-scoring side with Ash Flynn in their side.
Ricardo shares his memories of taking Hall Road back to the top flight of NCEL football after a four-year absence and explains why he believes his side pulled it off in the latest ‘My Greatest Game’.
Campion (Davis 25) 1-2 Hall Road Rangers (Batty 9, 29) – Saturday 22nd April 2017
The Teams
Campion: Armitage, Ndlovu, Dennison, Kendall, Brown, Hall, Buchanan, Cunningham, Hey, Davies, Batty. Subs: Trennery, Coates, Bradshaw.
Hall Road Rangers: Dobson, Owens, Whittingham, Harman, Dexter, Piercy, Bennett, Cooper, Batty, Spinks, Norton. Subs: Coulson, Muirhead, Belcher, Drewery, Vernon.
Referee: Mehdi Najefi
Attendance: 110
“That season is one I’ll never forget. It is one of the most memorable times I’ve had in football, certainly tor pure excitement. Three teams could have won the league on the final day and then you look the way the games went, the drama, it was an incredible finish.
“You look at Aguero’s goal for Manchester City (against QPR) a few years ago, our title race was the Non League version. If it was the Premier League they wouldn’t have known which ground to take the trophy. The trophy would have been on the M1 or M62.
“It was also the second season of the play-offs so there were still new so that added to the excitement. I’ve said to everyone that if we had gone into the play-offs we wouldn’t have won promotion because we had put so much energy into trying to win the last game at Campion.
“It has to be one of the tightest NCEL promotion races is living memory. I can’t remember a tighter finish. You look at Emley who were top for the majority of the season along with Pontefract. and look where they went and how successful they were under Paz (Craig Parry) and Rousey (Craig Rouse). Emley were the best footballing side with Ashley Flynn were scoring goal after goal. He was scoring, as was Kieran Ryan who I always rated. He had the sharpest elbows in the league, but I’d always have him on my side. Their two centre-halves were fantastic and Jordan Coduri was a talented player too. Penistone Church were in there too and they won the play-offs after finishing sixth. Ian Richards has done amazing job down there. Hallam had a strong side under Ryan (Hindley) and they rarely got beat. I think we were top for a short period of time early in the season, but we later dropped to fourth or fifth. We didn’t lose many and we built up a good run right at the end of the season.
“I think it was when we beat Hallam 1-0 with 14 games to go that we started to fancy ourselves. The game is remembered for me getting left there, but Ash Dexter poked the winner home and then ran 70 yards up the hill to celebrate. It was the quickest and longest run I have seen him make.
“Nobody expected us to win the league by any means. I would say promotion was the aim when I took over because I wouldn’t have been able to attract the players I did if I had said mid-table. But at the start of the season, if you’d said top six, I would have said that we would have had a good season.
“Ash Dexter was a huge signing because he brought leadership and one or two players in as well. He was the key because he set the tone at the back. He brought young Sam Belcher, Danny Norton and Tom Bennett in. Tom Bennett was a dynamo in midfield with his engine. James Whittingham was strong at left-back. People also forget we had Scott Phillips at the start of the season.
“We had people like Josh Batty who deserves massive respect. He wasn’t really in the clique because he was travelling from Grimsby for every training session and every game. It was a big thing for the kid as there wasn’t really anyone else who was travelling that kind of distance.
“Jake Vernon spent a lot of time in Stoke. He’s probably the cleverest kid I’ve ever met in football. He was at University in Hull. We had a really good mix of youth and experience. Phil Dobson in goal was a big plus for us because he’s 6ft 5 so not much got past him.
“We also had a French goalkeeper called Thibault Granger who was at University and could hardly speak a word of English. He would play if Phil was unavailable. I have some French in my repertoire so if he was playing I would start my team-talks for him with ‘bonjour, ça va’ to ask him how he was? It was testament to the team spirit because he thrived in the dressing room. He became part of the team and it was good to see.
“The more older I get the more I look back and Billy Heath taught me that team spirit counts as much as the coaching and team selection. If you have that team spirit you won’t go far wrong. If you look at any winning side, the team spirit will be usually extremely strong. We certainly had strong team spirit.
“Look at the time I got left at Hallam. We put that down to poor communication! I get on with Ryan Hindley well and I was talking to him and the Hallam chairman in the bar. I turned around at one point and I was the only person in a Hall Road tracksuit in there. Everyone else was halfway down the M62. I rang the youngest of the group, Harry, who had two or three of the others in there and I told them turn around. They had got to Goole. 45 minutes later they picked me up. I had a couple more pints with Ryan while I was waiting so there was no hardship from my point of view. Although I got an ear full off the missus when I got home at 10pm, two or three hours late.
“We also had a great run in the FA Vase, I don’t think people remember that. We got to the second round and most of the games were away from home so we had some cracking coach trips. Sam Belcher chucked my white shirt out of the coach roof and onto the A1 during one trip. He likes to remind me about it when I see him. The shirt is still down the A1 somewhere. We had a great laugh that year, it was fantastic. We had a few characters like your Brad Ricketts, Joe Cooper and Josh Batty and it was hysterics at times.
“We played with a 4-3-3 for the majority of the time, mainly because we didn’t have one out and out centre-forward, let along two. It didn’t really work out for Scott Phillips from September to October. We had natural width and we played Chris Spinks as the number nine at times, but he’s more of a ten than a nine. Gareth Owen did a job up-top when asked. He’d do a job anywhere and when you talk about the Campion game, he played right-back or right-midfield. High energy was big part of how we played. People who played against us would say we were one of the fittest sides. We just had a willingness to fight for each other. We could get the ball down and play, but we could also mix it up a bit because we scored a lot from set-pieces. Danny Norton and Sam Belcher both had long throws and people like Ash Dexter would get on the end of them.
“One of the decisive matches was when we got well and truly hammered at Pontefract in mid-March when we had Joe Cooper and Brad Ricketts, two of our key players missing. We lost 4-0, but it could have been six or seven.
“We had dropped to third and five points behind Emley in second and it meant we literally had to win nearly all our final six matches if we wanted to win promotion. We could not afford a slip-up.
“After losing to Ponte we four and drew one going into the Campion game. The hardest game was the penultimate match at Rossington. It was the GroundHop day and we played at 11am on the Saturday round of matches. It was a very windy day and fortunately we got a penalty in the first half after Josh Batty got fouled. For some reason he went to grab the ball even though Chris Spinks was our penalty taker. Chris was our man for penalties and free kicks. He could score from 45 yards. The video footage shows Josh grab the ball and there’s an exchange. Chris ends up with the ball and he buried it. It finished 1-0, but I remember our goalkeeper making several great saves. If we hadn’t won at Rossington we probably would not have gone up.
“In the weeks leading up to the final day, we were telling the players to keep going. When you’re in the position we were in you can’t change too much because the formula is working. It is a good position to be in. I’ve been in the other position as as player when you’ve lost four or five. That is tricky because you are looking at changing everything. The message was the same at Campion, although the events of the game were something else.
“With Campion, James (Bicknell) the manager and his (then) assistant Hayden (Lobley) and Marcus Mitchell had done a fantastic job and it was a tricky fixture. Pontefract were expected to beat Worsbrough, but with Campion it would always be a 50/50 chance as to who would win. A win was the only way we could go up as a draw would not take us past Emley or Pontefract, assuming they won at Worsbrough.
“Campion had a very good side, especially going forward. Eli Hey who went to Pontefract was upfront and scoring for fun. He was obviously the danger man. Campion finished eighth that year and that did a disservice to them because they should have finished higher.
“Josh scored early and that should have settled us, but Campion scored from a break-a-away goal. I’m sure it was from our corner. The ball got played over the top and the referee decided that Gareth Owen had brought Eli Hey down. I’ve seen the video and I can see why the referee gave it, but I’m not sure whether it was a penalty or not? Eli was waiting for the tackle, but with the referee giving the penalty he had to send Gaz off. They scored the penalty and we moved Danny Norton to right-back from midfield as we faced playing with ten men for 65 minutes.
“You can’t think that it isn’t going to be your day and one of the strangest goals I’ve ever seen in football happened a few minutes later. Josh Batty was the intelligent footballer on the pitch that day. He spotted that the goalkeeper had put the ball down and the referee hadn’t blown his whistle for an offside after the assistant had put his flag up. The ‘keeper thought the whistle had gone and Josh just tapped the ball into the net from five yards out. The goalkeeper obviously went nuts, but the referee stood his ground and gave the goal. If I had been in the opposition dugout, naturally I would have had a go at the ref. But equally I would have got the goalkeeper by the scruff of the neck. We’re all told from seven-years-old that we play to the whistle and he didn’t. To be fair, Danny Armitage is a very good goalkeeper and he’s a very natural ‘keeper, but on the day he was too casual.
“When Josh scored there was a bit of a delayed reaction. I expected it to be chalked off. When it was given, there was a big sigh of relief from us. But my first thought was ‘hang on, we’re 2-1 up with 60 minutes left and we have to work out how we are going to win it with ten men’.
“Myself and Bill Gill had a chat at half-time as we went into the dressing room and Bill was saying we had to go for the third. With Campion’s pitch, it is quite tight and I thought with Ash Dexter, Sam Belcher, Danny Norton and Phil at the back that we could play 4-4-1, soak up the pressure and catch them on the break. The lads to a tee listened to everything and they ran themselves into the ground.
“Campion hit the bar with a free kick in the second half, but we had chance after chance. Tom Bennett hadn’t scored all season, it was a running joke because I offered him something if he scored. He went through at one stage and only had the goalkeeper to beat. Time stood still. He beat the goalkeeper who was put on his back-side and from around the penalty spot, he lost his nerve and put it four or five yards wide. It was an open goal. I fell down laughing. It got to the point where I had had two heart attacks and my blood pressure was so high. Even in that moment I could see the lighter side to it. If it had been anyone else I would have gone nuts, but that season Tom drove us on.
“Jamie Coulson helped us out in the last eight or nine games and he came on and he put a couple wide. Craig Muirhead had a chance too. So we could have won the game comfortably.
“The final whistle went and itwas more relief. When you win a cup, it is kind of elation, but when you win a league it is relief because you’ve worked so hard over 40 games and all the hard work has come to fruition. It was really nice as well when Campion gave us a guard of honour. It showed character and respect. Not many clubs do that nowadays.
“When you look at what Hall Road had been through in the years prior, to win the league was fantastic achievement. (Chairman) Darren Sunley has done a fantastic job with Hall Road, along with Lee the vice-chairman. The club had to start again after leaving Dene Park and that was the club’s second season at Haworth Park. Darren gave me the boot a few months into the season after, but he and others deserve huge credit for making the project of rebuilding the club work. That promotion was as much for them as it was for the players – people like Darren, Lee Myers, Alan Chaplin, Tony Hardy and those who followed Hall Road through thick and thin. Volunteers are the backbone of any club at this level.
“I think the celebrations lasted a couple of nights! We certainly had a few and I didn’t get left in Bradford and to be fair to the missus she gave me a pass out.
“I still keep in touch with a fair few of the lads. I class a lot of them as friends. Me and Bill Gill now and again drop messages with each other. Especially now, it is important to drop in on one another to check if they’re okay. It is also good to reminisce and that’s one good thing social media does allowing you to do that.
“After leaving Hall Road I had a year with Barton and I do want to get back into management at the right time. They’re a lot of good managers out there not in jobs, better managers than me. I haven’t got a divine right to be a manager, but if the right opportunity came up, I would love to get back into it.”
Dave Ricardo was interviewed by James Grayson