DESPITE the negativity towards the Shaymen from regular contributors to this column, the loss of Halifax Town from the Blue Square Premier League (League division 3, in reality) is immense and has a significant impact on the local sporting community.

The reality is the lack of support by Calderdale Council for amateur and professional sport in the area.

Over the years it has been appalling. Calderdale has some of the worst sporting facilities in the country. The local pitches are badly maintained, the swimming pool is archaic and the athletics track at Spring Hall was only possible due to hard-working fund-raisers.

Spring Hall is a vastly underutilised sporting facility. It is an ideal facility for a centre of local sporting excellence. What happened to the proposed "sporting corridor"?

The excessive charges imposed on our local sporting teams is unacceptable. Our two professional teams are charged £7,000 a month for use of the Shay. They have one game every other week and can't even train on the pitch.

Instead of contemplating selling the Shay, the council should have assessed the commercial benefits to all parties concerned from an early completion of the East Stand.

Instead of short-term finanicial gain, the council should have looked at long-term benefits for the whole community.

Just look at what Hull City and Doncaster Rovers have achieved with council support. Both clubs were in a similar state to the Shaymen only six years ago.

This town should have a Super League rugby club and a football team prospering in the Football League. We have become a Batley, a Dewsbury, a West Yorkshire town only known for having a second-tier rugby-league team.

When TV and media coverage of the Blue Square Premier and Super League is at its peak, it is even more disappointing that next season the town of Halifax will be absent from that coverage.

The council's commitment to amateur sport, junior and senior, is underwhelming. A perfect example was Elland recreation ground at the beginning of last season.

The council had marked out the football pitch and placed the goalposts a foot behind the goal line. The council charges amateur clubs a substantial amount for this privilege.

On a previous occasion the players turned up for a game and the council had taken the goalposts down before the end of the season. Jumpers for goalposts, lads and lasses, that's what you pay the rent for!

From junior to open age, I played in the local leagues and some of the facilities were, well...in any other business the health and safety executive would have closed them down.

Sport is the essence of life. The passion, excitement, the love, the hurt. Without it, we are lost. For those that doubt, they have not lived.

Halifax has produced some great sportsmen and women. There is plenty of young sporting talent in Calderdale who dream of representing their town at professional level. The gifted go on to achieve the great. Let us not deny our children that opportunity.

Hopefully, our local larger financial companies can reassess their sponsorship budgets and reconsider there reservations about supporting professional sport in Halifax. Some sponsorship has been forthcoming, and rightly so, for our rugby league team.

Maybe a new Shay beginning will bring new impetus. Look at Stoke City and the relationship with the local building society. A long-term relationship that started with humble beginnings now finds itself in the Premiership.

May 9 in Leeds saw the near demise of Halifax Town AFC. Radio Leeds read out a statement from Calderdale Council – a one and a half line statement.

That was it. 97 years of professional football summed up by our council in one and a half lines. Says it all really.

John Eccles