Brighouse Town manager Grant Black has added three more players in the past week following his capture last week of Knaresborough Town striker Danny Edwards.

Ahead of pre-season training commencing on Saturday morning at the Heffernan Utilities Stadium he has signed experienced goalkeeper Kyle Trenerry who has previously played for Farsley Celtic, Albion Sports, Silsden, Yorkshire Amateur, Campion and Pontefract Collieries. This will now give Town two excellent custodians as Trenerry joins Jamie Hassall who kept goal for two thirds of last season.

The manager has also landed a prime target of his in striker Niah Payne who has played for Peterhead, Spennymoor, Matlock Town, Stafford Rangers and Ossett United.

Also joining the club from Selby Town is another striker or midfielder, namely Roy Fogarty.

According to chairman Chris Lister his manager is now pretty much there, but looking out for an experienced centre-back with last season’s incumbent Jorge Sikora having left for pastures new.

Another player who has left is striker Mo Qasim who has signed for NPL East Division new boys Emley who have been rocked with the departure of Reuben Jerome and Iyrwah Gooden to Bury. Former Brighouse Town, Workington and Ramsbottom United goalscorer Jerome bagged 34 goals in Bury’s NCEL Premier Division title success last term and Gooden bagged 26 goals as well for the Villagers.

Saturday’s training session is expected to draw a good number of supporters keen to see the work that Black and his assistant Mick Norbury have put in over May and June so far in bringing so many new faces and exciting ones at that to the Hove Edge base of the club.

It will be mid-July before the fixtures are out but the first process took place on Sunday when the club sent in their agreement with Emley for the August Bank Holiday Monday and New Year’s Day fixtures.

Town had hoped to also land Bradford Park Avenue for festive fixtures on Boxing Day and Easter Monday but the former Football League club tried for Emley and then went with Pontefract Collieries. Town are now in the hands of the League’s fixture planners and could land new boys Garforth Town, Liversedge or Ossett United for those holiday games.

Town officials have been encouraged by the interest shown from potential sponsors over the past week and will be meeting up with them in due course. Available this season is a company name across the shoulders of the shirt and also on the shorts.

Under 23s coach and committeeman Mark Ellis will represent the club at the NPL  AGM and evening dinner and cabaret evening at the New Hilton in Blackpool on Saturday, June 22.   

Phase one of the pitch extension at Brighouse Town’s ground has been completed with phase two-readjustment and installation of new floodlights- to follow next week.

Life-vice president Ray McLaughlin in charge of the project is delighted with the way the work has been carried out by three stoic members of the Brighouse-based Heffernan Utilities Company.

“They have reported to the ground from 7.30am each day since last Tuesday and worked in all weathers to remove the pitchside posts at the Quarry End of the ground and also the one metre wide concrete pathway at the back of the goals and then scoop out a trench to take the topsoil ahead of the turf which went down this past Tuesday,” informed McLaughlin.

Adding: “I cannot on behalf of the club thank their Managing Director Luke Heffernan and his co-directors enough.”

He continued: “All we need then is for some, dare I say, rain to assist with our normal pitch watering to get the turf bedded in with its rootage.

“I would like to thank Darren Muhl, James Moore and Joe Gill for their unstinting efforts and our groundstaff of Peter Hirst, Barry Thomas and Darren Laycock for their work also and also ensuring we got prepared at the quarry end for the old goalmouth area to be dug out to take new turf as well. 

“We have also worked to plans left by our groundsman Wally Hemingway to seed the touchline and the clubhouse goalmouth along with the necessary dressings that are put down in the close season.”

This added work has all come about after the the new ground grading team from the FA at their Wembley HQ came to inspect the pitch last summer and found that it was not 100 metres in length, but fine width-wise. If the work had not been carried out the Town, who have to adjust the positioning of their dugouts and the new half-way line, they would not have been allowed to kick-off the 2024-25 season and in all probability been left with having to leave Step 4 of the Football Pyramid system.

With the extension it means the floodlights are not near the corners of the new pitch markings and it means phase two will see new lighting on the pylons and to also meet the Lux requirement.

Kevin Allsop, father of the club’s defender Jamie Allsop, and managing director of Wakefield company Living Smarter Limited, trading as Eco Energy Saving Solutions, has been on site to work out with his electrical engineers what was needed. This, and the cost of it, has been given to the club and with the lights in stock, it is hoped they can commence work next week and complete before the end of June.

There had been fears that the project could be a timely affair and that was why all pre-season friendlies for July had been fixed up away from home and a pitch-hiring contract sorted with Pontefract Collieries for a league or cup game had it not been ready intime, but now by mid-July the pitch could well be playable.

      

Town are helping their assistant physio Charlotte Biggs all they can to get her fully qualified.

The Queensbury-based B-Tech student of physiotherapy at Huddersfield New College, Salendine Nook, now only needs her basic First Aid qualification to go with what she has already got to act at Step 4 Level. 

Charlotte has been with the club now for over two and half years and besides helping physio Nathan Fennell, she has been last season physio for Cara Mahoney’s Brighouse Town Women’s side who gained promotion in their first season.

The former Brighouse Town Women’s side in Step 3 of the Women’s game, who left Brighouse Town just over a year ago and changed their name to Halifax Town, have agreed a ground share with Bradford Park Avenue at the Horsfall Stadium for next season after previously being with Liversedge and then Yorkshire Amateur at their Chapel Allerton base in Leeds.