KNARESBOROUGH Town’s newly-appointed head of development Nigel Corner has declared that the club have ‘massive potential and are hugely ambitious’ upon taking on his new role.

Having now played in the Northern Counties Eastern Leagues for the last 11 seasons, Knaresborough are looking to take their next steps into propelling the club up the leagues, in appointing their new head of development.

Former Harrogate Railway chairman Corner has taken on the job, and has explained his excitement in the future of the football club.

“It’s what it says on the tin really, it’s all about the development of the club and of all of the aspects of the club,” Corner explained in an exclusive interview with The Press. 

“I noticed a comment on one of the social media posts from the club about how Knaresborough needed a head of development because they have got massive potential and are hugely ambitious. It was kind of a no-brainer.

“The club is in a really supportive town that gets behind the football, both men’s and women’s, and the town is growing day by day.

“Why wouldn’t the club want to grow as well? So that was the reason behind it really. The guys at the minute, the chairman Pete [Peter Plews, chairman] and all of the committee are incredibly busy. 

“Obviously I have got quite a lot of experience from previous roles in football.

"I was already involved in the club in terms of helping within the women’s section.

"And with the success of that scene, they kind of asked if I fancy doing a little bit for the rest of the club and try to move us forward in other areas.

“That was kind of the bottom line of it, which was brilliant for me because it means I can kind of dip my toe into all of it rather than stick to one area and deal with the sponsorship or on the commercial side of things.

"It’s just about the community and helping in all of these different areas, and to help wherever anybody wants me to help.”

Corner also explained his footballing background, too, which includes a variety of roles including the rise of Knaresborough Town’s Women’s side.

The Women’s side recently celebrated a fantastic promotion from the West Riding County Women’s Football League division four in their first season since forming.

But after a remarkable unbeaten season of 16 wins from 16 matches, the women’s ambitions don’t stop there for Corner.

“I used to be the chairman at Harrogate Railway. I was chairman there for a couple of years. They kind of class it as a general management position but I was there helping the chairman for a few years before that, so I was involved at Railway for four years.

“When I left Railway for personal reasons, it was difficult because I had a real passion for Railway as a football club.

“I got a number of offers, straight after that, that I wasn’t particularly interested in, with Knaresborough Town being one of them.

“I wanted to be in football, but at that time I had come away from Railway because I wanted to have a break.

“I got asked to be not particularly involved as such, but to be an advisor to what was then Leeds Ladies. This was in the season when they were re-merging if you like with Leeds United, and getting the badge back.

“That wasn’t too taxing. I had conversations with their chairman about my thoughts and what I think of this and what I think of that, so I did that and I did that in the season where we oversaw Leeds Ladies very successfully getting their badge back and becoming Leeds United Ladies, which is brilliant. I kind of thought that was done, it wasn’t involved enough if you like.

“So I came away from that, I had a season off, Covid hit, and in amongst all of that time Peter approached me from Knaresborough again.

“In May last year, I was at a friend’s 60th birthday party, and Peter the Knaresborough Town chairman and a lot of the players and staff were all there at the same party.

“He came and sat down and he said ‘right look, let’s get this in, are you going to come and work with me?’ and I said let’s talk about it, and I asked questions like why haven’t they got a women’s section at Knaresborough.

“There were a lot of very valid reasons for why not, and I am very passionate for the women’s game, my daughter plays for Knaresborough Town Women’s and she’s played at several different clubs prior to that so I am very passionate about the women’s game.

“Basically, over a very brief discussion I said that I’d come in and help the club, on the condition I am allowed to set up a women’s section. And Pete said alright, let’s do it. 

“And it’s fantastic. When you’ve got a team together that you’ve helped to create with Ged [Maloney], Nic [Streatfield], Mark [Doherty], Mike [Bligh] and Austin [Taylor], you kind of look at it and think that this won’t file.

“We’re 16 games in now, played 16 and won 16, got a goal difference which is going on to plus 150.

“A lot of that has come from Jed and his contacts within the girls game, and with the trials.

“Obviously my daughter has got a lot of contacts within the girls game and all of those sort of things come together. We ended up with 40 odd girls turn up to trial, we ended up with a squad of 23.

“A lot of these girls have played tier five, and for a reasonable period of time. So for them to start in tier seven, we kind of knew we would be here or thereabouts come the end of the season.

"But we didn’t anticipate it would be how it’s been.

“Unfortunately when you do go up to division three, which is where promotion takes you, we don’t have many teams coming in, so the division three teams are very equal to that level.

“But it’s probably not going to be too much of a challenge, so we are speaking to the league and just saying look, this will be no good for our girls, if we’re beating teams by 12, 15 or 20 every week.

“It isn’t really great for our development, and it isn’t great for the opposition who are thinking they’re going to come to Knaresborough now and concede 15 goals.

“So we’re hoping that the league, and so far the signs are that the league are certainly listening to us, hopefully there will be something positive that comes out of that and we can move up a little bit further I think.

“I think a lot of the clubs that we have played this season would agree. With our facilities, with our presentation, with the way we conduct ourselves and with our professionalism we have showed from the performance that we put out on the pitch. 

"We deserve to be in a bit of a higher league.”