The man charged with providing the town with a club it could be proud of was an ex-referee called John Carter. Carter remained the central figure at Ossett until his death, aged 88, many years later in 1994, and fans still remember his unswerving – and sadly very rare - loyalty and dedication to the club with the sort of fondness that is only ever reserved for indisputable legends.

Seeking their first competitive home in 1936, the newly formed club initially entered the local Leeds League. The Leeds League was unique in that every single competing club was required to fulfil a number of criteria to be eligible for membership. Clubs were required to:-

(a) Demonstrate that they were owned by an autocratic, white-bearded fanatic
(b) Prove that at least 96.3% of their fans were deluded, self-pitying, placard-brandishing nutcases with an abnormal understanding of the definition of ‘justice’
(c) Agree, without right of appeal, to a deduction of an arbitrary number of points for ‘financial irregularities’ prior to every season.

Eventually, much to the delight of its member clubs, the Leeds League eventually vanished and was re-branded as the West Yaaarkshire League in 1939. After the might of the Third Reich had been crushed by the stern resolve of the Allied powers in 1945, Ossett celebrated by switching from the West Yaaaaarkshire League to simply the Yaaaarshire League, home to the ‘A’ teams of Leeds, Sheffield United, a sheep, Sheffield Wednesday, a Yorkshire pudding, some faggots, Barnsley, a flat cap and, um, Doncaster Rovers. They achieved their highest finish in that division in 1950 – third place – on the back of 120 goals.

After bouncing between the top two divisions of the Yaaaarkshire League for a number of seasons, Ossett became the reluctant founders of a new division three – the equivalent of the crap subs of a crap Sunday league team being told to go train by themselves. After an abortive attempt to escape the bottom rung resulted in immediate relegation back to division three, Ossett managed successive promotions to division one in 1978.

Ossett is in ‘border country’, a moniker used by local historians to describe the fuzzy grey area between the pits and the wool mills. Ossett had both, and lost both as Britain moved to a call centre economy in the 20th century, although the town still boasts three working textile mills today.