The remarkable Sheffield Wednesday return of Harrogate Town manager Simon Weaver told ahead of Papa Johns Trophy clash

The house was on Shenstone Road, set just 100 yards or so from the Leppings Lane stand at Hillsborough Stadium. By now Weaver was in his early twenties, playing non-league and was struggling with injuries.

Just a few years on from his 1997 release as a player at Sheffield Wednesday by Ron Atkinson, every visit served as a reminder of his lost career; and inspiration for a dream to one day make it back.

Some two decades later, that girlfriend is a wife and mother and that dream has become reality – a lifelong Wednesdayite who spent 11 years at the club and captained the club’s reserve side, on Tuesday evening Simon Weaver will walk through the doors of Hillsborough as a contemporary – as manager of Harrogate Town.

“Both my mum and dad went to Wednesday matches from their childhood,” Weaver told The Star with a wobble of pride in his voice. “Their parents had been big fans, they all grew up watching in the South Stand.

“We grew up in a family of five as huge Sheffield Wednesday fans. We got seats in the South Stand and I was too small at first; my dad built me a box for me to sit on so that I could see the pitch. From that first game in 1982 aged four I’ve loved the club.

“It was a huge thing for me and the family; we did home games and away games as well, the cup finals in 91 and 93.

“My mum still has pictures of Roland Nilsson on the inside of her kitchen cupboards at home. Sheffield Wednesday has played a huge part in my life.”

A ‘Young Owls’ captain, a scholar and key reserve player plying his trade at centre-half, Weaver rose through the ranks but saw the scale of his senior involvement end at a behind-closed-doors friendly against FC Copenhagen.

Atkinson predecessor David Pleat had earmarked him for first team exposure before Weaver’s childhood hero Big Ron released him – in the same room at the same time as four other players – without much warning. Weaver was 20 years old.

“It was hard to take, especially at that age,” he said. “It took some getting over because I hadn’t seen it coming.

“I lost my identity. Suddenly I wasn’t ‘that young Sheffield Wednesday lad’ anymore, I was nowhere. It was a tough period.”

Among the very many happy memories he has of his long spell with the club, though, was an afternoon spent with the greatest player in the club’s history.

“Trevor Francis called me in for a one-to-one session,” he remembered. “Chris Waddle was lacking fitness and needed someone to run at one-to-one.

“Trevor was just knocking the ball to him and Waddle would just run at me. We did that for half a day! He tied me in knots.

“But it was incredible, from 16 to 20 I was spending time with people like him and John Sheridan, they were heroes of mine.”

A career in and out of the professional game followed – Weaver played for Ilkeston Town and Nuneaton Borough before re-joining the Football League with Lincoln City – before he joined Harrogate Town in remarkable circumstances in 2009.

A screenplay story unfolded; the injection of financial support to the club by his father from 2011, a switch to full-time football, promotion to the Football League, the signing of former Premier League forward Jon Stead and their current placing; a spot around the playoff places in League Two.

Who knows what’s next for Simon Weaver? He’s come a long way from coaching on a hired quarter of an astrofurf in Doncaster but always had ambitions to manage.

“Right from being in Young Owls I remember writing down the team and deciding in Wednesday needed a right-winger or whatever,” he laughed.

“I was playing back at Ilkeston and I’d just broken my leg for the second time. I opened up the paper and saw an advert for the Harrogate Town manager’s job. I thought I’d give it a go just for the experience of applying.

“The scenario at Harrogate at the time was that the budget had been cut. They gave me the opportunity to be manager; partly because I was coming in as player/manager and they were getting a player for free!”

Weaver first met his assistant Paul Thirlwell at Middlewood Road when the pair were aspiring young players. Thirlwell went on to forge a good career at Sunderland and Sheffield United among others and is one of several Sheffield connections Harrogate have.

Veteran defender Rory McArdle started out at Wednesday before making his journey through Rochdale, Aberdeen and Bradford. Midfielder Lloyd Kerry started life as a Blade. Centre-forward Aaron Martin was playing for Sheffield FC as recently as four years ago. Warren Burrell still drives up from the Steel City for training.

It’s no coincidence. Good, honest characters with hard-working ideals are what the Harrogate journey has been built on. ‘Yorkshire grit’, Weaver says, has been something of a mantra for what they do. It’s a club built in his image and to that end, they can’t go far wrong.

A Papa Johns dead-rubber it may be, but Tuesday evening will be an incredible moment for Simon Weaver and his family, some of whom will glance fondly at a little house on Shenstone Road.

“It’ll be a special day,” he said. “I remember all those years ago looking out of that window and thinking to myself ‘it’s still there’. I used it as a driver for myself to get back to where I wanted to be.

“It’ll be incredible to go there with what is now my club to play against Sheffield Wednesday after all we’ve achieved. I can’t wait.”