Wednesday morning comment from Harwood Bull.
Last Saturday I made the trip from Lancashire, where they put gravy on fish and chips, and call a bread roll a teacake, to Yorkshire, where they …… well I’m not sure about the fish/gravy thing, but they still call it a teacake. A familiar trip, as I have worked in or near Halifax for the last three years. Despite that I had never seen the Shay before. I was surprised, I’d mistakenly expected a crumbling relic of former good times, but it was quite impressive. I should have known that the Shay was a decent venue, as my employers have used the conference facilities there - something that we aren’t able to offer. Maybe one day.
It got me thinking of a thread on Bulls Banter 2 or 3 weeks ago, where someone asked the question “how do you think other supporters see us?”. The main point was, I think, do they look at us as ‘a big club’ at this level, or just a team like Barnet who bob up and down from the Conference to League Two and back again on a regular basis. Certainly if they make that assessment on the basis of the ground, we are definitely on the Barnet level, whereas Halifax look like a club with potential, and a ground that would sustain a team in a higher league with crowds to match.
I don’t think we should kid ourselves. Despite visiting managers’ clichés about ‘a difficult place to go’ or ‘a big club’, I doubt that a trip to Edgar Street holds many fears for the opposition. Supporters of my age can remember one season in Division Two, as it was then (i.e. The Championship now!), but that was almost forty years ago. For most current fans – of the Bulls and rivals – this is about as relevant as the last time Preston North End won the FA Cup. For those who have come to football in the last 15 years or so, they probably regard us as a modest club who had a brief period of success half a dozen years ago and who have struggled ever since. One thing that always riles me is when someone says ‘get this club back where it belongs’. If a club is in a lowly position and/or hugely in debt it is because of poor performances on the pitch and financial mismanagement. You belong at the level your performances dictate - one cliché I do agree with is ‘the table doesn’t lie’.
A lot of folk probably expected a big dividend from the transfer lottery, I mean tribunal, with talk of having asked for a fee of £100,000 for Clucas. I thought we might get £25,000 if we were lucky. As it turned out we got less than that. Despite the Mansfield manager crowing about the result, I can’t see anything remarkable about Clucas – sure, he was a useful young player, but there are hundreds of journeyman pros flogging around the lower leagues who were thought to be talented youngsters in their day. After all we’ve had a few of them on loan from the big clubs’ academies in the past.
If we are to haul ourselves back up the football ladder it will require steady rebuilding on and off the pitch. The reality is that it took 9 years last time and we shouldn’t delude ourselves that it will be any different now. We should also stop agonising about it – as long as we still have a club to support , football life goes on. Anyone fancy a few shares?
Come on you Bulls.
Harwood Bull