Cooper believes that new year will bring success
Every now and then, Andy Cooper looks at the suit he wore for the FA Trophy final in May and allows himself a moment to dream.
For The Shaymen to appear at Wembley 12 months on, they'll need to reach the National League play-off final, which looks their only route to promotion with Chesterfield already the runaway league leaders.
Some Town fans would scoff at the idea of their side contesting the final game for the second promotion place into League Two come the end of the season, but Cooper insists that is the aim.
"We want a strong play-off push, we want a strong promotion push," says the assistant manager when asked what his ambitions are for the year ahead.
"We go into the second round of fixtures with some really strong performances behind us, we've got players coming back from injury.
"Try to kick on, be more consistent with performances to get results and keep us up there in the area of the play-offs to have a really good run at it. We're more than capable. We know we're punching massively above our weight.
"You've got to keep an eye out for competitors because we know they can dip into the transfer market and bring players in at the turn of the year and strengthen, that's probably not something we're in the position to do.
"But we've just got to keep grafting and working, keep executing the game-plans and keep up there.
"We know we can be there or thereabouts, we've gone toe-to-toe with everyone in the league and we're not really disappointed with what we've been able to produce, we've just got to back it up.
"We saw what happens when you get those consistent performances with the four wins in a row, you can absolutely fly up the league and that's what we've got to do, keep picking up those wins and turning any losses into draws at worst, making sure we're still in the hunt come the business end, the last 10 games of the season."
Town have only sporadically played to their absolute best so far this season, and Cooper believes there is more to come from them in 2024. "I think some lads who are coming back from injuries or who have had stopstart seasons so far have got real quality," he said.
"You look at Flo Hoti as an example, through no fault of his own he's not really been able to get going. A tackle in a game pops his shoulder out and now he's got to get rehab and get back into playing but I'd be confident of saying he showed glimpses of what he can do and I think the fans have seen that.
"Players like him and multiple others, we want to see them getting better with a run of games.
"You see the impact Luke Summerfield has with a consistent run of games.
"There still growth and there's a real togetherness forming in the group that, when there will be bumps in the road or injuries or suspensions, we've got players knocking on the door.”