‘We were the weakest team in the league; with the worst manager!’
LITTLE DID Mick Rathbone know what he was letting himself in for when rolled up at The Shay one day in 1992 hoping to sell some clothes.
The former Birmingham, Blackburn and Preston defender was about to embark on an incredible three years that would set him on the path to working with Everton, Manchester United and England.
“I’d retired from playing, had nowhere to go, thinking ‘what do I do now? recalls Rathbone, affectionately known as Baz.
“I went on a physiotherapy course run by the PFA and, at the same time, to make ends meet, I started selling clothes out of the back of my car.
“One day I went over to Halifax to see my old Preston teammate Osher Williams, and I was telling them about the course, and they said ‘why don’t you come and be physio here?’
“And it was a massive part of my life for the next three years.”
To start with, Rathbone was basking in a relaxed, sunsoaked idyll, doing a job he enjoyed in the game he loved.
“When I look back at my 40odd years in football, that first six months is right up there among my best times,” he says. “It was absolutely magical. “We had quite a big squad, and John McGrath didn’t want some players, like Ian Juryeff, Greg Abbott, five or six of them, so apart from being the physio, I trained them up at Roils Head and down at Old Earth.
“The weather seemed to be fantastic every day, it was heaven.”
But the storm clouds were gathering.
Poor results led to John McGrath’s departure, and Rathbone taking up the reins.
His first match in charge was a 5-0 cup defeat at Huddersfield Town.
The sun had well and truly set on Rathbone’s idyllic existence at The Shay.
“We got beat by Bury at home in the next game, then we drew at York, who were top of the league, played really well,” he says.
“Then we got a win at home against Lincoln, then went and won at Darlington, great result, got a 2-2 draw at home.
“We were still losing most games but winning a couple. We had a four-match unbeaten run and then we got beat at Scarborough.
“But results had picked up, there was a feel-good factor about the place, and we’d got some resilience. The fans were absolutely amazing as well.
“We won at Doncaster, Billy Barr scored, and results went well for us. We were fourthbottom, and only one went down, and I thought ‘we can do this’.
“But we got done 2-1 at Chesterfield on a Tuesday night, we were winning 1-0, Ian Thompstone scored, they got a couple of late goals. “That night we sank to the very bottom. Number ninety-two.
“This would’ve been late March because it was deadline day the day after. “After the game, Jim Brown, the chairman, and David Greenwood, they said ‘you have to come back with us’ and I thought ‘oh great, as if things aren’t bad enough’.
“They said ‘Baz, tell all the lads they’re off tomorrow, you’ve got to be in the office from 9am til 5pm on that phone, it’s deadline day’.
“I said ‘right, what budget have I got’ and they said ‘no, no, no, you need to sell a player tomorrow or you’re not getting paid this month’.
“We sold Ian Thompstone, our top scorer, to Scunthorpe, which was nobody’s fault. But I thought then ‘we are knackered’.”
Despite selling his top-scorer and being rock-bottom of the Football League, Rathbone still had to rally his beleaguered troops for the final run-in.
“We lost a couple, but we fought to the end. We played at Bury, a really good side, and we went 1-0 up, they equalised, and Dave German scored late on, and I remember being in the players’ lounge after that game. Oh my god, what a feeling, thinking ‘we’re going to get out of it, we’re going to do it’.
“And then incredibly, Torquay won at Carlisle, the bottom club had won at the top club, and that killed us stone dead. All the joy of winning at Bury had gone.
“And then I thought ‘we’re done’.
“We got beat at home to Wrexham, could have been 100, weren’t good enough.
“Then I think we could’ve got out of it if we’d won at Gillingham, whoever won would be out of it.
“We played ever so well, but they scored a couple of long shots, and they were on the pitch dancing and we were going to the final game.
“We’ve got to beat Hereford at home - doable - and Northampton needed a draw at Shrewsbury, who are going for the play-offs,” recalls Rathbone.
“We could only hold 7,500 because of crowd safety, but that was still 5,500 more than the usual gate. There was a big queue, it was sunny, it was almost a carnival feel.
“It was 0-0 at half-time, and Northampton were losing 2-0.
“I’m thinking ‘one goal and I’m coming off shoulder high’.
“Then it went Shrewsbury 2 Northampton 1, then Shrewsbury 2 Northampton 2, then Shrewsbury 2 Northampton 3.
“That killed us. Hereford scored the winner with 10 minutes to go, and the rest is history.
“It was an incredible experience, I wouldn’t have changed it for anything. We tried our absolute best but unfortunately we were the weakest team in the league. With the worst manager!”
Rathbone felt he was the right man to try and lead The Shaymen out of the storm the following season, but after the demands of managing Town and his physiotherapy degree became too much, Peter Wragg was brought in.
There was one more chapter to be written in Rathbone’s remarkable time at Halifax though.
He made a handful of appearances for Town on an emergency basis, with his last coming against Dover at The Shay in 1995.
Rathbone scored the second in Town’s 4-0 romp with a cushioned volley from outside the box, prompting wild celebrations.
“We battered them,” he says. “If you could sum up what the whole Halifax experience meant - you know you’re leaving soon because you’re going to graduate and the club aren’t going to be able to pay you a full-time wage - so it was an opportunity to say thanks to the fans.
“I’d played a couple of games for Wraggy, but to leave on that note, unbelievable.”