{"id":539598,"date":"2020-01-06T14:57:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T19:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=539598"},"modified":"2020-01-06T14:57:11","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T19:57:11","slug":"stevenage-sign-non-league-winger-joe-leesley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/01\/06\/stevenage-sign-non-league-winger-joe-leesley\/","title":{"rendered":"Stevenage Sign Non League Winger Joe Leesley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>League Two side Stevenage have signed winger Joe Leesley from Harrogate Town on-loan for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n<h1>Stevenage Sign Winger Joe Leesley<\/h1>\n<h3>Loaned to Higher Division<\/h3>\n<p>Stevenage have signed the 25-year-old from Harrogate until the end of the season.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old scored once for the Yorkshire side before being loaned to National League rivals Stockport County.<\/p>\n<p>The winger was sent to County until the start of the month, making ten appearances and failing to score.<\/p>\n<p>Leesley scooped the National League North Player of the Season award in 2017-18 and helped his side to the National League Play-Off Final last year.<\/p>\n<p>Harrogate Town boss Simon Weaver <a href=\"https:\/\/www.harrogateadvertiser.co.uk\/sport\/football\/no-harrogate-town-return-joe-leesley-football-league-switch-agreed-1356744\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said<\/a>: &#8220;Joe is desperate to play games and I&#8217;m happy for him to go out and get some elsewhere at this moment in time. Of course he could have come back and fought for a place here, but this is a great opportunity for him to play in the Football League.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Stevenage boss Graham Westley, meanwhile, added that Leesley has been a long-term target.<\/p>\n<p>He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stevenagefc.com\/news\/2020\/january\/graham-westley-joe-leesley-new-signing-transfer-quotes-sky-bet-league-two-efl-english-football-league-monday-6th-january-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe came to my attention a couple of years ago when I was trying to sign a centre forward.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I spent a long time looking at the lad in question and Joe came to my eyesight as a great creator and a great scorer of goals at Conference North and then at Conference level.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have kept my eye on him since. He has progressed and developed as a player and he is one that I think is worthy of an opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are a good club for giving people an opportunity and seeing them seize it with both hands and I see him being the next one in-line.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He continued: &#8220;He is ready for the opportunity, he still has got ambition in front of him and he looks everything I expect him to be. I expect he will make a difference.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Stevenage are 23rd in League Two, level on points with basement club Morecambe.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <a id=\"YGoUdyetQiJ6N-HIbd3LIg\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1175134908\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'YGoUdyetQiJ6N-HIbd3LIg',sig:'07W-iHUSLzQcgdmYQbm0cWEyUD_HFGKO4wxOtyCq_tc=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1175134908',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>League Two side Stevenage have signed winger Joe Leesley from Harrogate Town on-loan for the remainder of the season. Stevenage Sign Winger Joe Leesley Loaned to Higher Division Stevenage have signed the 25-year-old from Harrogate until the end of the season. The 25-year-old scored once for the Yorkshire side before being loaned to National League [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3040,"featured_media":539607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,34,28],"tags":[168,4556,4555,520,3052,3089],"class_list":["post-539598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-league12","category-transfers","tag-efl","tag-harrogate-town","tag-joe-leesley","tag-league-two","tag-non-league","tag-stevenage"],"modified_by":"Matt Lee","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}