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Everyone loves a local hero, don’t they?

They certainly do on the North Yorkshire coast, where a Champions League winner is guiding his hometown team to new heights in the Vanarama National League North.

Jonathan Greening, manager of Scarborough Athletic, is a Scarborough boy by birth, and after winning promotion through the play-offs last season, the Seadogs now stand third in the North table after an impressive start to the campaign.

After a notable playing career taking in York City, Manchester United, Middlesbrough, West Bromwich Albion, Fulham and Nottingham Forest, Greening is now establishing his side, based at the Flamingo Land Stadium, as a club able to stand on their own two feet.

That’s especially apt for the Seadogs, who are a supporters trust owned and run team, formed out of the ashes of the former Scarborough FC in 2007 when the old club was wound up owing close to £2.5 million to creditors.

NL Full Time’s Dickie Worton was at the Flamingo Land Stadium last weekend, to see the Seadogs battle to a narrow and hard-fought 1-0 victory over AFC Telford United, and spoke to Greening for the podcast, about the result but also about his pride in bringing the Seadogs closer to the levels the previous club rose to.

Scarborough was promoted to the Football League in 1987 under the stewardship of a young manager making his way in the game, Neil Warnock.

Warnock and Greening’s playing careers couldn’t be more different, but times change and having a 44-year-old locally-based manager, but one with vast experience in football, certainly seems to be working for the Seadogs.

With a population of close to 110,000 and no real competition for people’s attention within 40-50 miles, at least as far as live football is concerned, the Seadogs have the potential to build further upon what Greening has helped them to achieve so far.

Over 1,500 people were at their game against Telford, and with fans visible in their Seadogs shirts and leisure wear throughout the town, it’s clear that the community is eager to see the Seadogs become top dogs again.

They’ll face challenges, for sure. Many fan-owned clubs before them have hit a glass ceiling, even when it has appeared initially that the sky’s the limit; however, those concerns are perhaps for another day. There are plenty of club experiences to draw upon if and when that happens, but for now, the Seadogs and their supporters are riding higher than the crests of the waves of the North Sea that crash onto the town’s beaches. 

The Seadogs themselves show few signs of crashing, and NL Full Time will be keen observers of how Scarborough fare…

As well as Jonathan Greening, our main guest on last weekendJonathan Greening, our main guest on the podcast last weekend was former Eastleigh manager Ben Strevens. Since leaving the Silverlake Stadium in January, Ben’s been recharging his batteries and with it being the time of year when teams start to contemplate changing course, his name has been linked with some of the vacancies. 

After a career spent scoring goals in the colours of Barnet, Dagenham and Redbridge and Eastleigh amongst others, Ben has plenty to offer; we sought his views on the game and where he may fit back into it.

The NL Full Time podcast is available weekly throughout the season, sometimes we even throw in a midweek special edition too, and all episodes of the podcast are available here:

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