Craig Ogilvie admits the idea of Yorkshire Amateur playing in the Northern Premier League was unimaginable until recent years.
Ogilvie and joint boss Neil Sibson are all set to lead the Ammers in the NPL next season as part of the FA’s restructuring plan which allows the club to seal a second promotion in three campaigns.
The arrival of successful local businessman Andrew Kendall-Jones as an investor in 2017 completely transformed the landscape at Bracken Edge.
He duly has and Ogilvie agrees the club is a different animal compared to his first stint with it.
“15 years ago I was the captain of the Ammers academy under (former first team manager) Graham (Hodder) so I knew what the state of the club was,” Ogilvie told Non League Yorkshire.
“I don’t think there would have been any aspirations at all to try and get into the Northern Prem.
“A lot of the credit has to go to Andy Kendall-Jones and Neil (Sibson) for where we have got to.
“It is going to be the highest level the club has ever played at and this is a project started four years ago before I came along.
“There’s been a lot of hard work from a lot of people, including the players who got them out of Division One, to get the club ready on-and-off-the-field to be in a position to go into the Northern Prem and to continue to be competitive.
“I would imagine if you put the whole structure of the club 15 years ago and how it is now side by side you would see that it is in a much stronger place.
“The magnitude in change over the last four years has been massive.”
The Ammers are not up yet as the restructuring needs to be ratified by the FA Council, but that appears a formality.
Liversedge and potentially Bridlington Town, if they choose to apply, will join them in the NPL and Ogilvie claims he was taken aback by the news on Monday as he was not expecting it.
“From my club’s perspective we’re absolutely over the moon,” he said.
“The news broke and everyone got it at different times as not everyone goes on WhatsApp at the same time so it was a little strange.
“You’d have loved it to have happened on a Saturday at 4.45pm so everyone can enjoy it in one go.
“We had a friendly yesterday and no-one knew how to celebrate it (the promotion) with each other.
“I was sat on the fence about whether they would restructure it until the announcement on Monday.
“People have said to me ‘did you know’? Well no, the moment it went on Twitter is the moment I knew.
“I was driving at the time and within a few minutes I had 150 WhatsApp messages from three different groups, but because I was on the A19 it wasn’t ideal.
“Then I was getting phone calls. It wasn’t until I got home and properly read everything that I said ‘right, good stuff’.
“I think the right three teams have been invited to apply to go up. When you look at the two tables from the last two years it is the same teams who are around the top of the table.
“It is the right decision and if the leagues are true in the way they have been forecasted, it (NPLDNW1) is going to be one hell of a league next season for local football.”
Until Monday it was unclear whether the FA would restructure the pyramid this summer so until now clubs at any level have been unable to properly formulate recruitment plans for next season.
Ogilvie reckons there may be a flurry of actively across Non League Football in the coming weeks.
The Ammers are scanning the market and are also playing behind closed doors friendlies which may help make decisions on the squad.
“I’d say even two weeks ago our phones were a bit hot anyway as it generally tends to be,” he said.
“(But since the news) we haven’t really sat down to discuss the squad yet as it only happened on Wednesday.
“We’ll have a very strong squad to choose from and positions will be there to be won by the lads based on performances in pre-season.
“Things will change slightly as we’ve gone up a league so we might have to look at different personnel and see who is available.
“It is a strange time to think about it because we’re talking about recruitment when it is mid-April.
“It is going to be strange to see how clubs do things. I have a funny feeling clubs might look to get their recruitment done and dusted in the next three weeks so we can enjoy a summer and come back in June.
“One thing is for certain we won’t be training all the way through. We’ll be having a break and we’re not doing too much now because I don’t see the point as you’ll end up burning people out.
“We are playing Wakefield and Nostell in the next week or half and we played Glasshoughton last night.
“We’re playing a lot of trialists and young lads just to mix it up. That’s no excuse for last night as we got beat 1-0, but it is actually enjoyable to watch a game without any pressure and have the opportunity to bed people in and see how people fit in.”
If you have enjoyed reading Non League Yorkshire over the past few months, please consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page. There is a video at the bottom of the page showing our work.
NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams. When we properly return to ‘action’, our work will play an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.
We have enjoyed great success over the past three years. Several of our players have represented Mencap GB in Geneva, including Billy Hobson from Selby and Greg Smith, whose story is quite inspiring.
You can learn more about the organisation HERE and on our Facebook page.
Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.