23 December 2023 , 10:15
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When the Tour de France came to Yorkshire, sprint legend Mark Cavendish crashed out 250 yards from the finish line in his mum's home town.
In the Victorian spa resort which hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 41 years ago, a dreary German ballad topped the vote – a far cry from Britain's Bucks Fizz making their minds up and whipping off their skirts 12 months earlier.
At Betty's Tea Rooms, the connoisseurs' afternoon tea of choice remains a fat rascal smothered in jam. Pure decadence with a brew. And on Wetherby Road, the longest-serving manager in all four divisions is still going strong after 14 years and 215 days of helping Harrogate Town reach for the spas.
If a football manager can keep his job for so long in an industry where the average shelf life now is barely 12 months, no wonder Harrogate was voted the happiest place to live in Britain.
Simon Weaver's party tricks include inviting England coach Gareth Southgate, who lives in the town, to give his players a pep-talk before the National League play-offs. It worked a treat – the Sulphurites went up.
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“I got to know Gareth because we were members of the same gym,” said Weaver, who turned 46 this week. “My players were surprised when he walked into the room, and probably relieved to hear a different voice, but he's a top guy.”
In the season of goodwill to all men except football managers, Nottingham Forest's Steve Cooper, Forest Green Rovers boss David Horseman and Sutton United's Matt Gray have all lost their jobs in the past seven days.
Weaver has steered Harrogate to two promotions during his tenure (PA)Merry Christmas, here's your P45. It's not only Santa Claus who gets the sack at this time of year. So let's hear it for the great survivors – after Weaver, John Coleman has chalked up nine years and 95 days on his second coming at Accrington Stanley.
And it's fair to say the next pair of untouchables know their way around the block, higher up the ladder than League Two – Jurgen Klopp (eight years 75 days at Liverpool) and Pep Guardiola (seven years, 174 days at a provincial club down to their last billion).
Almost 500 League managers have walked the plank – some of them several times over – since Weaver answered an advert for the vacancy at Harrogate in the Non League Paper in 2009, when Gordon Brown was still the tenant at 10 Downing Street, six Prime Ministers ago.
At 31, he had just broken his leg for the fourth time, playing for Ilkeston, and he said: “I only applied on the off-chance that I might get an interview and it would be good experience. When chairman Bill Fotherby, the former Leeds managing director, told me the budget was only £1,600-a-week to cover the whole squad and management staff, I realised why nobody else had applied.
“There were no players and, at face value, it looked a hospital pass. So to take the club where it is now - two promotions and two new stands later – is rewarding. After we won the play-off final behind closed doors at Wembley to get into the EFL, we borrowed an open-top bus for a victory parade from the company that takes tourists around York.
“I was a bit nervous in case nobody came out to celebrate with us. I didn't want the players' achievement to be spoiled by anti-climax – but the whole town turned out. It was magical.”
Weaver has established Harrogate in League Two, often damned with faint praise and charges of nepotism because his dad, Irving, has been the club's chairman since 2011.
Harrogate are now holding their own in League Two after Weaver started on a shoestring budget (Paul Thompson/ProSports/REX/Shutterstock)“It's an interesting dynamic,” said Weaver. “Bill (Fotherby) told me he was stepping down, needed to find a new owner and asked me about approaching my dad. I thought, 'Ugh, as if this job wasn't hard enough already' – and, yes, I was worried about conflicts of interest. I'd always had a good relationship with my dad and didn't want to spoil it... but Bill approached him anyway.
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“My father never lost a penny during nearly 50 years in the building trade and I didn't want to be the one who let him down and costs him a fortune. But he trusted me to build the team and help to build the club, so I owe him one. If we've made mistakes, at least we've made them together.”
Another important “ingredient” in the family firm's success story is Dorothy Weaver, the chairman's wife, who travels to every game, home and away, as the team's official supplier of cup cakes. We can only dream of Harrogate drawing Norwich in the FA Cup, inviting Delia Smith into the boardroom and turning it into a Great British Bake-Off.