Still the usual ups and downs for The Shaymen in this strangest of years
IT TAKES more than a global pandemic to get in the way of the usual ups and downs of a year at FC Halifax Town.
Coronavirus has played havoc with the Shaymen’s last 12 months - disrupting, delaying and then discontinuing the home straight of the 2019-20 campaign.
There was an interminable wait before the crushing exit of Town’s brief play-off campaign, and a repeatedly stop-start first half of the current season.
There’s been just eight games at The Shay in-front of supporters this year, with Covid leaving its imprint over so much of the sport, but most strikingly in the echoes of shouts from players and managers reverberating around empty stadiums.
2020 began with Town emerging blinking into the sunlight from their Boxing Day massacre at Stockport, with draws against County and Barnet putting them on the road to recovery.
A win at Torquay in the FA Trophy began a spectacular run of five consecutive wins, providing the light in contrast to the darkness and despair of Jordan Sinnott’s tragic death
News broke of the former Town midfielder’s passing on the day Cameron King, in Sinnott’s old number ten shirt, scored the only goal at Chorley.
Three days later, it was an emotionally-charged evening as Town beat Dover 4-2.
A 2-1 win over Bromley at the start of February was the precursor to an entirely unexpected slap-in-the-face as lowerdivision Halesowen dumped Town out of the FA Trophy.
That was the first of four drab, dour and dispiriting defeats from five games - the anomaly being a hard-fought 1-0 home win over Sutton which had put Halifax third in the table.
The regular season ended with toe-clenchingly poor performances on consecutive Saturdays
at home to Woking and Ebbsfleet, the latter being the only televised game in Great Britain that weekend due to the impending pandemic.
But Town were struck by stage fright.
Whether Halifax would have reached the play-offs had the season been concluded is a question as interesting as it is futile.
Four long months after the Ebbsfleet defeat, Town were back in action at Boreham Wood, and were a team transformed, leading 1-0 at half-time thanks to Tobi Sho-Silva’s goal.
The striker also had a thunderbolt brilliantly tipped over shortly before the interval.
Had that gone in, it would have been a long way back for the home side.
The Shaymen couldn’t hold out though as the hosts came storming back, and succumbed to goals from Kane Smith and Matt Rhead.
It had been a marvellous, miraculous achievement by Pete Wild and Chris Millington in guiding the club into the play-offs, something as completely unforeseen as a virus outbreak sparking a worldwide health crisis and changing people’s whole way of life.
Those four months before the play-offs gave Wild and Millington ample time to plan and prepare for the following season, which culminated in several new signings designed to fit around their preferred 3-41-2 system.
A raft of players left either due to better offers elsewhere, moving closer to home or being surplus to requirements
These included long-serving winger Josh Macdonald, and most surprisingly of all, club captain Matty Brown after five years of brave, fearless and fullblooded service.
Square pegs were identified for square holes, with a three tiered recruitment strategy focused on younger players with first-team experience, players in or around their prime and older heads to set and maintain standards on and off the pitch.
Of the summer arrivals, midfielder Luke Summerfield has so far been the outstanding acquisition, combining hard work and tenacity with a terrific range of passing and composure.
Wild has set about stamping his identity at the club off the pitch too by adding more specialised coaches, moving training back to Halifax one day a week and forging stronger links between the first-team and the youth set-up.
A mixed pre-season preceded a terrific curtain-raiser as Town beat Dagenham and Redbridge 2-0 with a stylish display.
If you’d said that day that Town wouldn’t win any of their next nine games, that would have been as completely unforeseen as, well, you get the idea.
It was a pretty daunting start fixtures-wise, with a narrow defeat at much-fancied Stockport followed by draws against Boreham Wood, Yeovil and Woking, with plenty of encouraging signs.
But another miserable cup exit was again the first of four defeats from their next five matches as Halifax slumped to a dreadful 2-0 loss at South Shields in the FA Cup.
It later transpired that a Covid outbreak had swept through the squad, which did explain the sheer awfulness of the team’s performance, and the subsequent improvement when they returned to action two-and-a-half weeks later.
A gutsy display by a ten-man and then nine-man Town was cruelly beaten by a late Wealdstone goal.
Another battling performance against Notts County was rewarded by Jamie Allen’s added time equaliser before narrow defeats to high-flyers Torquay and Sutton.Town then finally kicked into top gear, winning six of their eight games in December.
That run began with a 5-2 thrashing of Barnet, as Town raced into a 5-0 lead within the hour.
Another five were put past a sorry Weymouth live on BT Sport, before Town came from behind to win 3-1 at Aldershot. This was more like it.
After an undeserved defeat at Solihull, Town beat Hartlepool on penalties in the FA Trophy, and then Eastleigh three days later.
A blustery Boxing Day defeat at Hartlepool was followed by a hard-fought 3-2 win over inform Altrincham at The Shay to ensure Halifax ended the year in the play-off places
In the summer, Wild and Millington said they wanted to turn the club from “plucky little Halifax” to a team that is expected to be fighting at the top end of the division. Few can argue they are well on the way to realising that ambition.
So do your worst 2021. Whatever else it has in store, there are plenty of reasons for optimism at The Shay.