For April 15th I'm going back 38 years to 1983 and York City's visit to The Shay to play Halifax Town in League Division 4.
The Shay was unusual in Football League circles at the time for having a Speedway track around the pitch. One summer, desperate for sporting action, we went to The Shay to watch the Speedway and saw the Halifax Dukes take on the Eastbourne Eagles or some such. Speedway virgins that we were, we looked for a good place to stand and saw a nice open piece of terracing down near the front in one of the corners and stood there anticipating the first race. The shower of grit that we got covered in as the bikes shot past was a sight to behold much to the amusement of the regulars I'm sure. It seemed to me that whoever got the lead into the first corner would tend to win most of the time. Predictable and dull. We didn't go back. After 1985, nor did the Halifax Dukes who fell out with the Football Club and moved lock, stock and barrel to Bradford, becoming the Bradford Dukes. Don't you just hate a franchise?
Much like York City, it seemed that Halifax Town were perennial strugglers in the lower echelons of the Football League in the days before automatic relegation to the Conference (National League) for the worst two sides each season. Down the years, Halifax Town had to go cap in hand to their peers and apply for re-election 12 times (York had to do the same thing seven times) and were never voted out. The record for re-elections however belongs to Hartlepool United who managed to get re-elected an amazing 14 times. I reckon they must have put on a good spread in the boardroom!
If I'm being strict about these things, I should mention at this point that Halifax Town no longer exist. The club that we went to see on this particular day was finally dissolved in 2008. As often happens in these situations however, a phoenix club rose from the ashes of the dissolved club by the name of FC Halifax Town. Do you see the difference? I thought not. The new club had to start their fresh existence in Northern Premier League Division 1 North at the eighth tier of English Football but at least the long suffering supporters still had a club to support. Despite the technicalities I would regard the two Halifax Town's as being one and the same and I'm sure that their supporters feel the same. I sometimes refer to it as Football DNA. For example, MK Dons don't have the old Wimbledon FC's DNA despite technically being the same club - that DNA went into the brand new club called AFC Wimbledon. I hereby copyright the term "Football DNA" which you may henceforth use only with my express permission!
A healthy attendance (for Halifax) of 2,117 watched the two sides battle it out for a 2-2 draw. Mick Bullock's Town had future City player Steve Spooner in their starting line-up. Denis Smith's York had the majority of the side that would sweep all before them the following season and included former striker and Assistant Manager Viv Busby in midfield. One interesting side note is that Busby was substituted by one Dave King that day who managed just a single Football League appearance and this was it. One to tell the grandkids about perhaps?
CRB Match No. 243
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