YOU CAN KEEP ON WRITING US OFF!
UNDERDOGS FC Halifax Town are happy to keep on being written off as they have been all season, says Nathan Clarke.
The Shaymen are the surprise inclusion in the playoffs after a summer of turmoil this time last year.
Boss Pete Wild was appointed only ten days before the campaign started, following the sudden resignation of Jamie Fullarton, and had a threadbare squad of 14 players on his first day in the job.
Yet the former Oldham Athletic boss took to the role with ease, hitting the ground running to be in the promotion mix from the start and eventually finishing sixth on points-per-game.
The phoenix club now has another shot at promotion to the Football League after defeat in the 2014 semi-finals – and rock solid centre-back Clarke, who briefly took over as caretaker manager when Fullarton left, is happy to be the underdog.
“It’s always nice to prove people wrong, we’ve been doing that throughout the season, and we feel no different now,” he told The NLP. “The manager coming in to a depleted squad and recruiting the guys that he has done and everything else was a credit to him.
“I think there was a lot of teams writing us off this season and thankfully for us we stuck together as a group and been able to prove them wrong. Again, I think we’re still being written off in these play-offs, we’re underdogs at the moment, we’re going to have to take that and use it as a positive.”
Shape
Even for the vastly experienced Clarke – with over 500 appearances in the Football League for the likes of Huddersfield Town, Leyton Orient, Bradford City, Coventry City and Grimsby Town – the play-off build up has been significantly different to usual.
The players were given fitness programmes during lockdown to keep them in shape should football resume and boss Wild was particularly impressed with their condition on their first day back.
The strict Covid protocols have taken some getting used to but having completed their third week in training, and now being able to do full-contact sessions with 11-a-side matches, a sense of normality is returning.
“We’ve had three lots of tests come back all clear so far and we’ve been able to ramp it up in training,” said Clarke. “We have the temperature checks every day. It makes it easier on your mind, you’re not worrying about it. The group and staff are doing all the precautions to make sure everything is safe.
“We’re all excited to be back. We knew we had to be careful, if the test comes back positive it could rule you out for the play-off games.”
As part of the Covid regulations, FC Halifax will travel down on the day to Meadow Park where they’ll take on Boreham Wood, who got the better of them when they met in October.
Homework
Before lockdown, the Shaymen were in danger of giving up their play-off place with a run of four defeats in five while Boreham Wood had lost just once in a staggering 19 leagues games – but now form is now completely out of the window.
“Normally you can do quite a lot of homework on teams you’re coming up against,” added the 36-year-old. “You can still to do that to a degree but it’s been three or four months without any games.
“In that sense I think we can concentrate on ourselves a little bit more and prepare and plan on what we want to do rather than worrying too
much about what they’re going to be like.
“We played them once this season which was a tough game. They’re very comfortable on the ball, the majority of the squad like to get it down and play which is possibly a bit different to other teams in this league where it’s more back to front.
“We’ve got to be aware of that and the main threat is the front three they’ve got.”