Durham City 0 – 2 Halifax Town; 16/10/10.

Durham City 0 – 2 Halifax Town; 16/10/10.

Here's one for you to miss. With the mercury tucked away deep into your thermometer, your team have an away day in the First Qualifying Round of the FA Cup 100 miles away. It's something I won't pass, in part due to my tie to the Shaymen and part because I wanted to meet a friend at the university. Otherwise I'd really have to dig deep for a good reason. It is a Town match, but one you know to be a dull, unglamorous formality in a land far away. I'd have to at least ponder a 200-mile round trip for my favourite bands so it shouldn't make sense that I would go for anything less. My trump card? Well, the Shaymen are more than a favourite band, aren't they.

This was a big one for Durham. Not a crowd-puller, but one with nothing to lose. A team they now know to be far tougher than them, and a slight money-earner for the club due to Halifax Town's radical introduction of away fans to the Evo-Stik league. Their side is still barely a senior one, and the best of the local sixth formers' ability is near warm-up pace to the Shaymen.

My last trip here was early on last year, when this was one of the season's biggest games. Durham were catching up on games and winning most of them. We always had more games played and because of that tasted the first place for a couple of months. A win there would've asserted our place. An average following of 450 came up and got so little atmosphere going that an older fan started blasting "Ole, ole, ole, ole/We are the Town, we are the Town" through a tinny megaphone speaker. We had several chants this time round, which shows how far our morale has come. Walking around New Ferens Park I had memories of trying to balance a plate of chips and programme whilst clapping at the good moves underneath the stand, Danny Meadowcroft doing a season-ending slide into the hoardings at the far side, and that disallowed header that stopped it from going to 2–1 for us. Oh, and one of the Durham strikers straight after the match with a baby in his arms, yelling at our fans that they'll be the champions, and we'll be consigned to the play-offs. An insult at the time, but in finishing eighth we would've been glad of playoffs towards the end of a sadly farcical season.

I dredge up these memories because there was nothing in this match for the memory. An emphatic win with little effort and thankfully no injuries on the tough astroturf, so job done. It's good to have memories of a place that is otherwise the most arid footballing land: a gloomy galvanised stand looking over the dark green plastic with hard standing everywhere else in between a nursery, a massive blue warehouse-like sports complex, and most uninhabitably, a Premier Inn. Said "inn" is attached to the grimmest restaurant ever, a franchised thing with a personality that would bore those who go to stadium:mk full of logs that will never be burnt on a fire. Over the space of 15 minutes, they failed to cut my friend a Victoria sponge before we had to march off to the game. Pathetic beyond words. The waitresses milled around the bar like remedial amoebas, moving pint glasses one metre east, then one metre west again. If those places are to your taste, please smash your head through your monitor immediately and make it your resting place.

Nicky Gray finally got that goal for his confidence, as he weaved from the line of the corner flag to the centre edge of the box to find a good place to leave the ball in the back left, out of the reach of the University Challenge-haired goalkeeper. That came in five minutes, and the second came later on in the second-half, with a hesitant tap-in by a pump-wearing James Dean.

Tomorrow we'll see if we're drawn anywhere interesting in the next round (Prescot Cables?).

 

Durham City 0 – 2 Halifax Town; att. 282
Ground: 3/10
Pitch: 3/10
Programme: N/A
Talent: 8/10 (in the city)
Non-partisan entertainment: 2/10 

Form:
Durham City 0 – 2 Halifax Town
Halifax Town 4 – 0 Harrogate Town
Burscough 0 – 2 Halifax Town
Ashton United 0 – 3 Halifax Town
Halifax Town 4 – 0 Hucknall Town

Halifax Town 4 – 0 Harrogate Town; 09/10/10.

Halifax Town 4 – 0 Harrogate Town; 09/10/10.

Watch the match highlights.

I take the very slight doubts I've had from time to time back. As in, when we don't win. Because when we don't, it's starting to feel very bad indeed. Neil Aspin really has designs upon this team. The way he helped his team carry out a demolishing of a troubled club, his old club that he got so close to promotion with on next to no money before leaving with no other choice, has been ruthless. Machiavelli on a 110 yard pitch. Before the match Aspin let us know that he was going to treat this game like any other tie against a step two team, and that he seemed to do. A reunion wouldn't be a good idea anyway, seeing as the Harrogate squad had completely changed over the past 18 months.

The spill of Shaymen & friends in the East Stand is looking healthy.

It was a great surprise to walk in and see a larger crowd then expected, and a party started at the same time kick-off did, us managing to sing for at least 85 minutes, exhausting literally every Town chant I could think of. Harrogate Town themselves could have brought one or two hundred, and pluckily sung along only to be drowned out whenever they did. A player of theirs ran onto the pitch in pink—I was guessing this was just the goalkeeper for a split second until it turned out they were all in pink. It's nothing short of noble to put yourself out like that for breast cancer awareness, but like that's going to stop the south stand from goading. They put in some good effort to start off with and some that made the two teams equal, though mysteriously they never got a shot in despite the pink presence in our third. After the routine finding-our-footing, we found ourselves deep into a pretty dirty game. Two-footers and  tackles on James Dean on goal etc etc, and a penalty was eventually given, along with a big fat red for their Pell. Naylor followed suit a few minutes into Harrogate's deficit for going two yellow cards too far: nine men before the break! With some composure, they began to realise the only way around a card-happy ref was to tone down the rough play, and by half-time it remained 1–0, though there was hardly a chance of that scoreline changing in their favour.

They're playing in pink? . . . PINK?!

A miraculous scenario to have at half time especially with the atmosphere, a number of buzzcuts in tracksuits appearing here and there who you don't normally see at the games. I'd imagine Aspin's words were few but to not make any silly mistakes and put a few more past them. Many shots got close, Gonzalez having to throw himself to the other side of the net for a few lethal shots (Baker being a chief suspect). Within only a handful of minutes Vardy signalled his return after being injured since Northwich with a rebounded close-range shot into the opposite corner, one that not a single goalie could get to. Gonzalez did his bit but the deficit had to be large. Both teams were behaving on the field save Harrogate Town getting very frustrated with some decisions . . . understandable for the more innocent ones when little could be played after two sendings off.

One to watch: Withinfields' no. 8.

Part-time fans were appeased when two goals in quick succession proved on paper that we really did lamp Aspin's old club. A bunch of Harrogate delegates had abandoned the stands after a smooth Taylor tap-in. It would've been heartbreaking were they still there to witness their old man Holland hammer the penultimate one from the edge of the box. A fifth went in but was declared offside, which the finish certainly wasn't but who's to complain. We were the lower league side and the better side, and with three knockouts we are officially on a cup run!

An interesting aside, since Following the Shaymen prides itself in its impartial coverage: many H'gate fans are happy with this result. Why? Their manager Weaver has been accused of being out-of-touch and being inept à la Jim Vince, with a good eye for players but not a single clue on how to put them on their mettle. Nothing is expected, but they hope such a diabolical result for them is exactly what's required to see the man out, a man who has no intention on resigning himself. An official joined the fan forum purely to rudely rebuke an open letter of complaint on there, and with its harsh words sizzling on my mind I see eye-to-eye with their plight. No matter how the performances are going, the fan is the one they should be treating above anyone else. If a fan has been supporting your team longer than you've been in charge of it, then take their words into consideration. They may just have a point to make. Cheers!

 

4QR. The one before the 1st Round. Will we appear on the small screen this year? Many would fancy us against any contenders for Monday's draw. There is the relative ease of Frickley or Sheffield FC, FC United of Manchester and then the true gift clash between Lincoln Moorlands Railway (cute name and second bottom of the NCEL) and Mossley AFC. Then there's even York City, Grimsby and a few others, who we could also hold our own against at our current standard. A slightly bigger party (probably) awaits in two Saturdays' time, but the focus for many Shaymen right now is clenching a win against whoever that will be, and the never-forgotten taste of league opposition.


Halifax Town 4 – 0 Harrogate Town; att. 1834
Entertainment: 8/10

Form:
Halifax Town 4 – 0 Harrogate Town
Burscough 0 – 2 Halifax Town
Ashton United 0 – 3 Halifax Town
Halifax Town 4 – 0 Hucknall Town
Ashton United 1 – 2 Halifax Town

Independent review (FA Cup Groundhopper).