Dave Parker

WITH EACH day and week’s passing and no firm news yet on Steps 3-6 having their seasons declared null and void for the second year running owing to the pandemic, Brighouse Town manager Vill Powell has invited nine west Yorkshire clubs to join his club for a competition with a possible commencement date of Saturday April 3.

First aired in Echo Sport last month, Powell has now moved forward with the dates and rules to the following clubs, Campion,. Eccleshill United, Emley, Garforth Town,Golcar United, Ossett United, Steeton, Liversedge and Thackley.

The clubs will each play five home and five away games and then the top two from each section will play semi-finals ahead of a final on May 29.

The first three games for them will be over Saturdays and then they will also then bring in midweek games and be able to have sixteen players on duty for each game and use five substitutes.

Once the Town manager knows for certain the competition can go ahead and with spectators and hopefully clubhouses open, he will send out the fixtures with each game being worth the normal three points for a win, a point for a draw and zero for a defeat. Goal difference will come into play after the final games if teams are level on points. The semi-finals if tied on 90 minutes will go straight to penalties and also on final day.

Not only will this give the players something to look forward to after months of inactivity for a second season running but also referees and linesmen who have also been without fixtures since December.

Powell will be able to play his suspended wideman Shiraz Khan who still has four games top serve of a five match ban with it not being a NPL or FA competition.

The competition gives each manager the opportunity to look at their playing registers ahead of what will be a short closed season with talk of extra preliminary and preliminary round FA Cup ties being scheduled for the first week of August or even last week of July.

The players involved in this competition would probably only have three weeks of June off before being called back in for pre-season training.

With the NPL’s ground grading team due for a visit to the Yorkshire Payments Stadium, work recommenced on Tuesday morning under Ray McLaughlin’s guidance after 10 days of inactivity owing to the freeze-up.

“There is quite a bit of outdoor work to do on the terracing and behind the quarry end goals and this was impossible with the temperatures and the mixing of cement and, of course, working in those temperatures,” informed the Life Vice President and former chairman.

SOUTHOWRAM-BASED Leicestershire County Cricket Club CEO Sean Jarvis is this week celebrating landing a major sponsor for his club after joining them last year from his post as Commercial Director at Huddersfield Town.

Jarvis, a good friend of Brighouse Town AFC chairman James Howard and club sponsor and leisurewear supplier Paul Ramsden, sales executive of Heckmondwike company Tog 24, has landed The Melton Building Society as sponsors of his academy team and also the family stand at Grace Road.

He is thoroughly enjoying his new role chartering the way off the field for The Foxes after several successful years at the Terriers alongside former chairman Dean Hoyle and Ramsden who is also the club’s PA announcer after a busy sporting career with the Old Brodleians and Lightcliffe CC, where he captained both.

Messrs Jarvis and Ramsden have both said in the past 48 hours that England’s outstanding win over India is a great boost for the country right now and also for the game of cricket and especially with it being seen live on terrestrial television following Channel 4 landing the rights ahead of BT and Sky Sports.

Dave Parker

BRIGHOUSE TOWN’S striker Eli Hey has in the past week returned to former club Pontefract Collieries. The Mytholmroyd-based cattle farmer apparently wanted to make more starts than coming off the bench which he had been doing for most of Town’s league and cup games before the December pause in the season owing to the pandemic.

A prolific scorer for Pontefract ahead of breaking a leg ironically against Town two and a half years ago, new manager Craig Rouse, who has left Worksop Town to take over from Andy Monkhouse, has made him his first signing. Rouse is a former player and assistant coach at Pontefract and said he knows fully what Hey is capable of. Before joining Town, Hey played at Eccleshill United to get back his match fitness and then for a short spell at Colne before Vill Powell moved in to capture him.

This departure could see a return to the Yorkshire Payments Stadium of striker Joe Jagger who left the club in November on a dual registration to play with Toolstation Northern Counties East League Division One club Campion. Ahead the league pausing later in December he helped the Bradford club into second place behind leaders Emley. Town’s reserve keeper George Clarke is also out on a dual permit at Campion.

With the return from over a year out through injury of Mohammed `TJ’ Ibrahim plus Hey, Laurence Sorhaindo, Eddie Church, Jack Boyle and Alhassane Keita, something had to give up front and it was Jagger who moved out.

Town’s manager also has a couple of irons in the fire for two new players of his own for when football is allowed again after putting seven day notices on them.

Former FC Halifax Town and Ossett United wide man Shiraz Khan is looking likely with a closure of the season imminent to go into next season still serving four matches for two dismissals ahead of the League pausing. He did clear one with the Workington game on Saturday, December 19.

Town will also be awaiting news from Keita’s Leeds-based solicitor to see if he has finally got his clearance to work and play football in this country after over two years of nothing positive coming to fruition for the former French Guinea resident. Although Kieta is now fluent in English,his sponsor for this season, former Elland Brooksbank teacher Martin Pearmain does converse with him in French while encouraging him to tie up the loose ends while there is inactivity out on the pitch.

THERE WAS some good news for Brighouse Town on the financial front over the past weekend as the Government finally turned their original £10 million offer of Winter Sport Survival aid loans into grant-aid.

Now Steps 3-6-Town are Step 4-will have to send in claims for their grant aid and Town’s treasurer Dave Wormald has been busy this week filling in the forms and hoping his work will bring the club the maximum for the step Town are in of £15,000. Clubs at Step 3 can send proof for a maximum of £27,000, Step 3 the £15,000 and Step 5 £10,500 and Step 6 £7,500.

“I have had a word with Ray McLaughlin on the ground grading expense we may well run up this month including refurbishing our hospitality room until we get something better and then there are other issues like the stand roof and pitchside advertising board maintenance through weathering,” enlightened Wormald.

“It is obvious a lot of work went on behind the scenes by the FA and our League heirachy to alter this into grant money rather than loans which did not appeal at all, especially when there is no date soon about a return to having spectators back in the grounds to see some football start the income streams running again,” he added.

DESPITE THERE being no action out on the Yorkshire Payments Stadium pitch, home of Brighouse Town AFC, owing to the paused season doesn’t mean there is not going to be a lack of it over the pitchside advertising hoardings.

Former chairman and player-manager Ray McLaughlin has been working on the forms for the 2020-21 ground grading assessment required and on Tuesday lunchtime was walking around the ground with general manager Darren Laycock to see what needed maintenance and tidying up ahead of a visit by FA officials in mid-February.

New sineage was ordered ahead of the latest pause in the season and all that will have to be put up in the next two weeks. Safety first paintwork was given a good coating in the months of June and July by Life Vice President Barrie Fitzjohn and that is one area they are keen on. Back in 2017 at a cost of £20,000, but mainly sponsored, the dressing rooms were expanded to the new requirements in non-league football and they receive a new coat of paint and maintenance annually.

“It’s a tall order right now with the covid rules to ask volunteers to come out of their safety bubbles and get the ground in tip top condition and the signs up, but fortunately we do keep on top of work at the stadium and do get plaudits for how well it looks,”added McLaughlin.