OTLEY Town Chairman Kai Arter insists there is room to remain positive, despite one of the “strangest” football seasons he has ever been involved in.

After their league campaign was brought to a close earlier than expected, due to the impact of Covid-19, Town entered the President’s Challenge, a friendly tournament designed to give the players some game time.

And prior to the tournament, Town sat in a respectable fifth place in the West Yorkshire League Division One, only for the season to be ended prematurely.

Now the campaign has finished, the club will be hoping for some positive post season news, as the league will decide on which sides can make the jump to the Premier Division.

In line with the season’s closure, one man who has remained optimistic is Chairman Arter.

He said: “It has been a particularity strange season, but don’t get me wrong, there has been a lot of positives to take from it.

“It’s been a very disruptive season with numerous stops, starts and restarts, but we’ve made some good progress. There’s a bunch of young players coming through now, we’ve added a fourth senior team from next season, and we’ve made a lot of progress on the ground.

“Overall, it’s been a positive one, but what we don’t know is what’s going to happen with next season with the reorganisation of the league.

“We were in a good position in the season prior to this, when the season was declared null and void.

“And we were in a reasonably good position when the season was cut short this time, so it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with that.”

Arter added: “We’ve had this sort of friendly league since then, but the friendly league has been a mixed bag with a lot of teams.

“There were a few teams who didn’t enter and there were a few teams who struggled to get sides together, so it has a been slightly odd competition to take part in.

“But at least it got the lads out playing a bit of football.”

From the impact of the pandemic, many clubs have suffered serious financial damage with the lack of income through ticketing sales, however Otley were fortunate in some regards.

Discussing the matter, Arter said: “It has affected us because we’ve had a lot of lost revenue through matchday receipts, but we’ve been fortunate that we’ve had some grant support from the council, because we have a clubhouse and a bar.

“We did get some support and that has softened it a little bit, but it’s certainly knocked us back in bringing in money for food, drink and sponsorships, but thankfully we did get some support.

“Other clubs haven’t been as lucky.”

Offering his thoughts on next season, Arter said: “We will be looking to strengthen prior to next season. We always look to move forward as a team and as a club, so we will be certainly brining in new faces.

“We need to show progress year on year; however, this year has been difficult to judge that. The goal for now will be to show we’ve progressed on and off the field.”