Mid-table respectability in a division on the bottom step of the non-league pyramid system is not where Eccleshill United want to be but they will certainly take that from the season just ended.

Following two seasons of decline, the club has worked hard, under difficult circumstances, to steady themselves - on and off the field of play.

Their tenth place in Kool Sport Northern Counties East League Division One will be viewed from within as the first green shoots of recovery.

It was a disappointment of sorts because two places higher and they would have qualified for the coming season’s FA Cup.

Just hanging on inside the top half of the table was also not what they expected after a very promising start.

With former Bradford City man Ian Banks at the helm, assisted by Grant Crooks, the Eagles got off to a fine opening.

The campaign will forever be remembered, however, for the controversy of the FA intervention into team selection.

Banks, one time No 2 at Valley Parade to Nicky Law, had tapped into an unexpected pool of players thanks to another former Bantam.

Mark Ellis runs a football coaching academy for Richmond University, based in Leeds, and is also director of football for the Eagles.

A handful of the foreign students at Ellis’ academy were deemed good enough for Eccleshill and international clearance was sought and granted. They were integrated into the squad and became regular first-team players.

Around the turn of the year, the football authorities looked into the situation and found there were unanswered questions regarding their own rules and regulations.

The FA decided to make those overseas players ineligible until they had formulated a structure to prevent any possible misuse of that route into the game.

The decision came as a blow to lowly Eccleshill and results began to suffer.

Banks had to name himself as a substitute for midweek games because the squad was so thin, and he drafted his 16-year-old son Oliver in when he was released by Doncaster Rovers’ Academy.

The Eagles rallied once more and enjoyed a decent finish to the season which lifted them back up to that tenth place and also lifted expectations for next season.