Josh Falkingham is the current captain of Harrogate Town, a West Yorkshire team who sit in the fourth tier of English football, League Two, but his career didn’t always look like this.
Josh grew up in Rothwell, a town just outside of Leeds and from the young age of just eight years old, he was able to make his way into Leeds academy, where he proceeded to stay there playing for various youth teams for a whole eleven years until 2010.
Unfortunately for Falkingham however, Leeds United deemed him not good enough to break into the first team and they released him at twenty years old, a difficult age to try and find somewhere else to go.
He said, “I was released by Leeds United as a young kid when they were in league One, at the time I was told I wasn’t good enough for that standard.”
He continued to say, “For me it’s always been about can we push on, can we go to league 1, it’s been within me to get back ever since we got promoted from the football league and into league 2. My drive is to get back there and constantly prove people wrong and the closer I get to there, which I have been doing my whole career, the more it just shows they made the wrong decision.”
Getting released from an academy at any age is difficult for anyone but at twenty years old, getting told you aren’t good enough to make it takes an incredible amount of mental strength and Falkingham stated that his goal was to get back into league one, to show he had the capability and skill to play there.
After hearing this news, Falkingham would receive a short term offer to leave Rothwell and move to Scotland to play for St Johnstone in the Scottish Premier League, but again, after just one appearance Rothwell was released at the end of the season leaving him in a place where he did not know what was going to happen to his career.
Falkingham then had to take another cut as he moved down to the Scottish 3rd division at twenty-one years of age to play for Arbroath where he would become a regular starter for the whole season and net nine goals from central midfield as the team won their division and moved into the third tier of Scottish football, earning him a contract extension for the first time in his career.
In the next season, he was able to get into the second division team of the year, earning him his move up into the first division as Dunfermline swooped in to sign him, proving Falkingham’s career was on the rise, and he was inching closer to his dream of making it back to where he was told earlier in his career, he wasn’t good enough to be.
Reflecting on his career in Scotland, Falkingham said, “At the time, I was just desperate to be playing football, it was just all about that drive and trying to make it in the game.”
And make a name he did, as he earned his move back to England to play for Darlington in 2016, followed by Harrogate Town a year later., where he would move up from the national league to league two after winning the national league playoffs.
Harrogate remain in league 2, where Falkingham is the captain of the club, just one league away from where he wanted to finish his career at.
He said, “Becoming the captain of Harrogate was such a big honour to me, it showed to me they believed that I was the right man for the job and it gave me the belief that the club thought I was a good enough player to take this club in the right direction.”
Harrogate currently sit seven points away from the playoff and after having a good stretch of form, there is no reason as to why Josh can’t achieve his dream and get back to where it all started for him as a player and captain of a brilliant club who gave him the opportunity Leeds never gave to him.
