North West Counties League Division One North
Ash Connor says his and his brother Gav’s 200 games in charge of Golcar United are just the first chapter of the remarkable story.
The brothers have led the incredible rise of the Huddersfield-based club whose first team and ground have been transformed over the last seven years.
Golcar has gone from the West Riding County Amateur League where they were watched by one man and their dog to having hundreds turning out to cheer them on in the North West Counties.
The clash at old adversaries Campion on Tuesday night is their 200th match in the Golcar dugout and while there’ll be no silver salvers nor an unveiling of an Ash and Gav ice sculpture, Connor admits there is a lot to reflect on.
But he warned that the ambition to go even higher remains a burning desire.
“The journey and what we have done is brilliant,” Connor told Non League Yorkshire.
“From taking the job on in 2014 to where we are now…it is brilliant how we have come and how much we have moved forward.
“The ground was just a football pitch on the back of a housing estate.
“It was a little bit run down and not a great facility.
“The transformation (of the ground) over the last two years has been massive.
“It is an appealing place and we get the local cup finals and people want to play here because we actually get people approaching us now.
“When we first started out we probably had 20 people watching.
“We played Huddersfield Town a few weeks ago and had 700 people through the gate.
“It has been a great journey so far but me and Gav don’t want to stop now.
“We want to be successful again with promotion this year.
“We know it is easy said than done but that’s our aim and that’s the aim of the whole club.
“The committee, management team and the players are all ambitious and everyone is pulling in the same way.
“We want to keep going forward, we don’t want to stop yet.”
Connor played Non League Football for the likes of Harrogate Town, Mossley and Ossett Albion before moving into management with his brother at Marsden in the West Riding County Amateur League a decade ago.
The brothers then joined Golcar in 2014 and have enjoyed a glory-laden time and lot of unforgettable moments.
“In the County Amateur (the best memory) has to be when we won our first league title (in 2018),” he said.
“We had to win our last two games and we played Campion away and beat them and then we had to beat Littletown away.
“They were a good side at the time and they had Rob Bordman and Joe Jagger playing upfront for them.
“We won 1-0 and it was the league title that the club had won for a long time and it was my last game as a player.
“From a management and personal point of view that’s been the most memorable game.
“There’s been a lot more as well.
“We had a successful time over a two-year-period when we won the league two years on the bounce along with the Huddersfield & District Cup.
“In terms of the last season in the West Riding we were brilliant.
“We had Buddy Cox scoring for fun and we won the league at a canter.
“As a Non League club my biggest stand-out game was the first game (in 2019) against Prestwich Heys.
“It was an unknown for us.
“We didn’t know how many would come through the gate and then 400 turned up.
“It was a great start in Non League Football and we won 2-1 as Ben Burnett and Alex Hallam scored which was fitting as they had been part of the club for a number of years.
“Another was when we played Shelley at home and we had nearly 600 people through the door and we beat.
“Going away to AFC Blackpool is another. We were 1-0 down in the last minute and a young lad called Fraser Beckett came off the bench and managed to score two goals.
“The celebrations were great because we obviously won 2-1.
“There’s loads of memories when you look back over the years but there’s more to come.”
With Campion an old foe from the County Amateur days, it is an accidental nice touch for the 200th game.
“They have had a good time themselves,” Connor added.
“James Bicknell has done a fantastic job there and we used to have a friendly rivalry with them when we played in the West Riding County Amateur League together.
“We played them in our first season (with Golcar) and we’ve always had good battles with them.
“It is quite fitting that it is them (for our 200th game).”
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.
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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.