Lee Ashforth admits Campion had to rip up parts of their plans for the new season after the club was moved to the North West Counties League.
Campion will be swapping Yorkshire Tea for JK Rowling’s favourite beverage Lancashire Tea as the FA moved them from the Toolstation NCEL Division One to the NWCL Division One North in May as part of the restructuring.
The timing wasn’t great as Campion’s preparations for another campaign in the NCEL were well underway.
“We had done a lot of planning and it changed a couple of things,” joint manager Ashforth told Non League Yorkshire.
“We are fortunate that most of our players are local so we haven’t got anyone who it is too far to travel for.
“We have a couple of lads from Leeds and that’s as far as we’re going to go to get players in.
“The first thing was keeping the squad that has been on the verge of promotion two years on the trot together.
“There was always going to be one or two exits because that always happens in Non League.
“Moving on it was about getting the recruitment right.
“You’re right in what you say in that the players we were initially looking to bring in were scratched off straightaway as the travelling would have been too much for them.
“I’m not going to tell you the names, but we had one goalkeeper who we thought was going to sign for us (until the club was moved).
“I think it is going to be a year getting to know the league and seeing if we have the players to have another go at promotion.
“The other way it affected us is that we had our pre-season planned and we had the likes of Ilkley Town, Steeton and Chadderton booked in.
“Well we had to cancel all three at the last minute as they are all in our league and it is an unwritten rule that you don’t play teams from your own league in pre-season.
“It has been tougher than it would have been if we had stayed in the Northern Counties, but it is a new challenge and we’re looking forward to it.”
Managing in the North West of England is nothing new to former Harrogate Railway and Ossett Town chief Ashforth.
He spent the majority of the 2018/19 at the helm of Northern Premier League outfit Clitheroe and he agrees the Shawbridge experience could be helpful to Campion.
“I keep getting asked this by a few people and I do have a few contacts over there,” he said.
“But the majority of them were NPL at the time like Steve Cunningham, Tom Baker, Chris Willock, all those guys who were higher up the chain.
“I didn’t watch much North West Counties (when I was Clitheroe manager).
“I watched Barnoldswick a couple of times as they were the closest team to us and I tried to sign Zack Dale a couple of times when I was at Clitheroe.
“I’ve texted a few people over there and I’ve asked for a few contacts.”
Campion have plenty of mouth-watering games to relish, including the derby day battles with Golcar United, Ilkley Town and Steeton plus clashes with giants Bury AFC.
“There’s a couple of things we looked at immediately,” he said.
“The local ones like you say will be nice because when we were in the North East Counties we didn’t really have any local games.
“Emley were our closest team and we never actually played them (last season).
“Even that was a 30 minute drive and after that you’re talking about your Glasshoughton’s and they are not classed as derbies.
“Now we have three derbies and there’s six teams I think in the league who have 3G pitches so that is going to be a new challenge as we’re not used to that as a squad.
“There’s a lot of things to look forward to. You look at the trips like AFC Blackpool, AFC Liverpool.
“The Isle of Man were in it but they have gone back into the South.
“I was going to put it down on my CV that I was managing in European Football when we were going to play them!
“I was telling people that I’d got to Europe before Leeds United!”
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.
Our work is playing 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.
