Town Taking Shape

Saturday saw my first trip to the Shay this year (holidays getting in the way of the two earlier friendlies) and how lucky was I , it was a big game against the mighty Accrington. You realise how far you have fallen when you look up such a distance to Accy, a team who themselves are only too familiar with the task of rebuilding from ground zero.

The game was as you would expect, pretty uneventful and disjointed with both teams trying out as many players as they could fit in each of their respective dressing rooms. A 3-1 victory for our Lancastrian visitors told us very little really and didn't really reflect the game in any way. It was a pretty even, with Town taking an early lead via an unstoppable James Dean header from a well placed Mark Peers free kick. A couple of sloppy individual defensive errors proved to be the difference between the sides rather than fitness, skill or footballing genius. As they always say, the result didn't matter.

Dean is looking like a the key signing and will no doubt be a big hit in Unibond 1. In the middle Baker and Phelan continue to look good, both proving that they were obvious players to retain from the ill fated Vince era. In Peers and Whitehouse the Shaymen have two quick wide players who, if used well, will provide a solid supply line that Unibond defences will struggle to cope with. At the back it is clear that better fitness, increased mobility and a little bit more intelligence has been brought into the squad again at a skill level beyond our current league.

At this early stage it looks like Neil Aspin is building a solid, fit, organised and capable enough team. There are no obvious show ponies this time around and the consequently the workrate has visibly increased, which has to be one of the keys to improving on last season. You already get a sense that the team respect Aspin and as we found out to our cost last season, if a manager doesn't have that completely from his players they will fall apart and he will fail – no matter how decent a man he is. The slight concern I have at this very early stage is the size of the squad that he is looking to build – he is suggesting around 16 players will do the trick, but my recent experience of non league football tells me that he may be being a little optimistic. Having said that, the prospect of a settled starting line up is an appealing one so it will be interesting to see how things pan out.

There was of course another team involved in yesterday's warm up, Accrington Stanley (said in the compulsory scouse accent a la annoying 80's milk add ). Based on this showing poor old Spaccy clearly don't have a hope in hell in the coming season. It really felt that they had found their level playing against our pub league team. Their dozen or so fans (christ its only 26 miles away – Garforth brought more) draped those annoying flags all over our stand – 'Pride in the shirt not ££££ in the wallet' one banner said. What else could Stanley fans say? They are skint, they have no support and buy most of their players from Poundstretcher. If they wanted a truly honest a flag then something along the lines of 'We are ASFC and we are totally f***ed' would work better (I am sure if they ask our commercial staff nicely have some left over in our club shop from a couple of seasons back, they will just need to die them and change the name, it will only cost a few bob). You do for a moment feel for these lost souls who have so much in common with us, but then you remember they are from Lancashire (close to Burnley), which entitles you to chuckle at will.

The Day He Went to Bangor

So Ashley Stott has gone. After a single season and 22 goals the young striker has returned to Bangor, the club he left last summer to join the Shaymen. Having knocked in a few you would think his departure would be met with a degree of disappointment, oh no not here Halifax, Stott has effectively left as a 22 goal villain. Only at the Shay could we create such a thing.

A section of fans went for him from pretty early on. One particular halfwit made profession out of berating Stott, so much so that the player issued a response via a message on a T shirt during a home game. So dim was the fan that he considered this reaction to be a victory. As pointless as much of dialogue was, Ashley needed to understand that coming a big non league club with big non league wages (I remember the shiny suited agent who introduced him to JV at Alfreton) that the criticism also gets bigger when you don't deliver what is expected. The barracking didn't help his game, he should have been bigger than that.

On the field things weren't made easy for him. Without a regular strike partner he never found his niche in the team. Injuries were the main reason for this lack of stability up front, further exasperated by an unstable supply line in midfield (more to do with JV's dithering). Could he have done better under the circumstances? The supporters continue to be divided on that one.

In reality he is an average non league striker not particularly better or worse than any of the ones we saw playing for other teams in this hell hole. He could do a job for us and Perhaps we need to accept that at this level of the game that quality is not really that easy to come by.

And.......Ten of the Worst

Well we have had a look at 10 of the best so it is only fair that we look at 10 of the worst.

Worst Home Game
There are a few to choose from. ,Curzon hurt, Rossendale was simply embarrassing and Bamber was a let down. However, none of these top the debacle of losing at home to Woodley sports at a crucial point in the season, it was simply pants.

Worst Away Game
There are even more to choose from here! Lets cut to the chase - Harrogate Railway in the league was a totally gutless performance against shocking opponents. On top of this it was in front of a massive away following who had bothered to venture out on cold, cold winters day at the end of the festive season. It felt like Town were disprespecting us.

Worst Player to Wear a Town Shirt
I can't actually remember all the ones who have had the pleasure over the past few months but right at the start we were so desparate to field a team that we went far lower than we should have done in the search for players. The easily forgotten Dorryl Proffit stands out, a nice guy by all accounts and someone with fine history that had seen him play at Man City & star for England youth. In his brief stint with us he didn't beat a man or put a cross in - major failings for a winger.

Worst Ground: Alsager was pretty ropey but that was preseason and they were doing us a favour. Lets get back to the mighty Unibond, I'd go for Warrington, totally appalling in every way. It was never good even when it was first built.

Worst Tackle: Too many to mention but Ossett Albion certainly delivered the highest proportion of of appalling challenges per game.

Worst Food: Well I couldn't eat at Harrogate on New Years Day because the 'catering manager' at the posh end of Yorkshire under ordered the pies and everything else. Ten minutes in it was Kit Kats or nothing. Similarly, I gave up trying at Rossendale. Tin pot!

Worst Manager (not including ours): The obvious target here is Simon Clifford of Garforth Town. He remains the strongest example I have seen yet of a person who's self belief spectacularly exceeds their ability, he is a total fantasist, a supreme Walter Mitty. He was supposed to be taking over Newcastle.....like they really need him now.

Worst Referee: This is a lot easier than finding the best one! I don't want to mention the name of this one incase I inflame 'matters' further. We all know who it was, Easter, a small town near Wakefield - in three decades of watching football I have never seen an official as bad as this. There is no excuse and there is no reason for him to ever take the field again. He will also cost us in some way. Disgusting.

Most Annoying Aspect of our First Season: Injuries, plastic pitches, split dressing rooms.............None of the above, just the fact that we should have been much, much better than we were. We will be.

Worst Opposing Supporters: What opposing supporters?

Ten of the Best

It's been a season of firsts for FCHT, I thought I would take a moment to pull out a top 10 from the long list of happenings.



Game: Bamber Bridge away, total dominance against a team who 8 weeks earlier had spoilt our big day. Revenge at a coasting and convincing 5-2 was very sweet.

Player:Tom Baker got all the votes in every poll, but even he had his ups and downs. How do you pick out a player from a team who never never really settled?

Goal: Gedders at Ratcliffe was a great team goal with a lovely finish, gets my vote.

Comeback: There weren't really that many to speak of! Newcastle Blue Star at home stands out but it has to go to Garforth away because it was night we came to life.

Free Kick: Tom Baker at home to NBS, made it look so easy and it felt very nice at the time.

Ground: Well that's toughie! Curzon is better than many in the Conference and supported by an on site bakers, decent car park and a proper welcome.

Day Out: Durham, like Newcastle but nice. Great performance too, we deserved all 3 points, but what the hey.

Best Song: We are JimVinceable (proved to be a factually inaccurate ditty)

Best Food: Alfreton Town away in preseason, they did this belly buster type thing that took up a whole catering size tray and included pie chips, gravy, peas and possibly some sort of mixed grill. Jemmo had one whilst he was waiting for the team to arrive (true I saw him), he mustn't have had his tea that day.

Best Referee: The one at home against Trafford, at least he created a moment of true Mickey Mouse comedy by forcing somebody from the crowd to take over.

Bored with Boards

It seems ages now since the FCHT official message went down due to technical difficulties – its almost like waiting for an update on ShaymenOnline (or should that be off line). Its been clear for some time that the club were uncomfortable with the existence of free expression being directly connected with them.

Whilst this feels wrong you can sort of (only sort of) see their point of view. The Punibond seem to hate us and are always on the look out for a reason to have a go – criticism of them on the board wasn't ever welcome and remember the Youtube debacle? Also, too many posters simply made things up, possibly leading to accusations of libel (although very unlikely). And of course some of the content was simply damaging and demotivating for the sake of it. In short, it is easy to see why the club would struggle to see it as a great PR vehicle and why up to its withdrawal content was regularly being removed. Strange though how so many other clubs around the country manage online communities without the need for such fuss.

Ossett away was the final straw, with with the club set to face a charge from the FA after fans intervened at the end of the game following a appalling display by the referee. Not wanting to worsen the situation, the board was pulled as a protective measure shortly after the game to stop the FA collecting ammunition in the form of continued abuse of the referee.

This leaves us with the unofficial board to post on at theshaymen.net. It's fair to say there was always some tension between this board and the official one, each community suggesting it was more relevant than the other and with the phrase 'kiddies board' being tediously overused. In theory the independent board does offer the poster more freedom to say what they feel and has no need to tow the party line. However, like the official board it too has recently had to resort to censorship following a trickle of dodgy posts from supposed rugby league fans – a mildly amusing outcome in light of the fact that this community had scorned restricting content up to that point, pot and kettle perhaps?

It does seem we are missing something right now in the midst of all of this with one board down and another hardly eager to bring refugees in. Its all a bit banterless. I wish we just had one good place to go on the net that we all felt welcome on and could exchange & develop ideas. I won't hold my breath.