‘It’ll go with me to my grave, everybody remembers it’
IN THE latest part of our My Time At Town series, we speak to former Halifax captain Paul Hendrie.
Nearly 5,000 miles away from his previous one, Paul Hendrie found a home in Halifax.
The Scottish midfielder had swapped a sun-kissed lifestyle in America, where he counted Pele among his opponents and spent relaxed afternoons playing golf, for another shot at English football with Bristol Rovers in 1977.
After that move proved ill-fated, Hendrie found the warmth and security he was looking for at The Shay.
Hendrie was named playerof-the-year in his first season at Portland, and received the same accolade in his first two full seasons at Halifax.
“I could do box-to-box, I was playing central midfield,” he says.
“I was more of a creative midfielder, I could win the ball and that, but when Bobby Davison came I must have laid on over half his goals for him.
“He used to make runs in behind the back four and I used to love playing with Bobby, because he had a bit of pace and his runs were good.
“George (Kirby, Halifax boss) was a very strong man. He knew what he wanted.”
Town never finished higher than 11th in Hendrie’s five seasons at the club, racking up placings of 18th, 23rd, 19th, 11th and 21st from 1979-80 to 198384.
“Not the greatest of records are they! says Hendrie.
“It never felt as if we were going to get relegated though.
“We had good players in the side.
“We underachieved with the team we had.
“If we could have put the same side out every week we wouldn’t have been so low down in the table.
“And then we lost people like Micky Kennedy and Bobby Davison.They were key players for us.”
Buried among the five seasons of struggle, like a diamond in the soil, is Hendrie’s finest moment, and arguably Halifax’s too.
On Saturday, January 5, 1980, the football world was turned on its head as top-flight Manchester City were dumped out of the FA Cup, with Hendrie netting the winner.
The highlight of his time at Town “without a doubt” says Hendrie.
“People are always saying they’ve seen it on YouTube and ‘oh, I didn’t know it was you who scored the goal’.
“People still talk about it.
“It’ll go with me to my grave because everybody remembers it.
“It was such a massive shock, like Hereford beating Newcastle.
“And it was great for myself scoring the goal.”
Despite the rest of his time at The Shay never coming close to matching that landmark day, Hendrie says he wanted to stay at the club for the rest of his career.
“I thought I’d finish at Halifax,” says Hendrie. I enjoyed my football there, and I made lots of good friends.”