Now that the dust has settled and the fate of my beloved Halifax Town has been sealed, I feel compelled to air my own thoughts concerning those who have continually driven the club into the ground until they left it and us with nothing.

Of course, with my passion for the history of the club and all that that has entailed, it would be fair to say that the club has never really been successful, and some would argue it should be rightly put to bed. For those supporters who backed Halifax Town through thin and thinner, the view is the complete opposite.

The fan base that at best would be around 1,500 – though of course much higher when a bit of success comes its way – deserved so much more than different boards of directors gave them.

The protracted takeover – that never was – was typical of the way the club has been run, and one wonders now, that even if it had come off, would Bosomworth, Ham and Peacock have made a success of it?

Despite putting in stashes of cash, which, it would be fair to say, kept the club going a little longer, it does seem ironic that the consortium that was going to save Halifax Town in the end killed it.
That will be their legacy, nothing less.

The present crisis was not of their making in the first instance; the debts were already there. But it seems that for the sake of around £8,000, which former chairman Ray Moreland was asking for back, they put the club into administration and therefore gambled with it – and lost.

Why it really took so long for Bosomworth, Ham and Peacock to complete the takeover they sought, only they themselves really know. They wanted a 75 per cent shareholding to have complete control of the club, but surely, having acquired the shares they did (around 61 per cent I believe) they could have formed a board, structured the club, given Moreland his money back, and perhaps money would have come into the club through commercial activity, the selling of a player (Jon Shaw must have been worth a six figure sum) and a run in the FA Cup, not out of the question.

In short, they could have been running the club, given it a bit more time, and the death knell would not have been sounded. Who knows?
The fans themselves often talk of where it all started to go wrong.

It is old ground, I know, when we talk about the period 10 years ago, when, following our greatest achievement in winning the Conference and reclaiming our Football League status, but the return of Jim Brown as chairman was viewed even at the time as disastrous for the club.

He hardly covered himself in glory during his first spell at the club, what with relegation in 1993 and all, but his activity set in motion the chain of events that culminated in the announcement on Friday.

Brown, like those that followed, has a lot to answer for. With much input from his brother-in-law Peter Butler, the Conference-winning team was broken up far too early and the calibre of the players brought in took us down the familiar road of eternal struggle.

The pair of them may feel they have no part to play in Halifax Town's demise; to a man the supporters would think otherwise.

His successor Bob Walker, one feels, had a dream of walking through the divisions with an ex-international in Paul Bracewell.

Didn't Walker promise First Division football within five years of him taking the helm? His expensive running of the club, with average players on vast amounts of money – Andy Woodward and Dominic Ludden spring to mind –- meant only one thing. Debt and no success.

Relegation duly came, yet unlike in 1993, when a team of triers went down fighting, losing league status simply because they were not quite good enough, in 2002 the club was relegated with players who acted like prima donnas and had no real passion for the club. Some of them were just there because of the wages offered them.

The club went into administration, and that would be Bob Walker's legacy. He, like Brown, can't be exonerated from Halifax Town's death.

But there was still life in the club; the board now headed by David Cairns appointed Chris Wilder as manager, and though the CVA the club had to operate under was crippling the club, on the field Wilder came close to giving us back League football in 2006 – just two years ago.

I bet the then chairman Geoff Ralph would have loved that; being entertained in the boardroom of Football League clubs, being in the Big Time. The club was 10 minutes away from winning the Conference play-off final at Leicester, and the step-up looked likely. But our hearts were broken and Hereford won in extra-time.

What amazed all the supporters at the time of that final, in fact on the morning of the game itself, was the total lack of commercial activity. No scarves, pennants, annoying bazookas, play-off final memorabilia. Nothing at all. Well, apart from the non-official stuff from southern-based sellers, who arrived at the Shay three days in advance.

Our suspicions should have been aroused then; no club marketing, no commercial manager, no club shop to speak of. How did Ralph expect the club to sustain itself when it relied totally on income through the gates, and a bit of hoped-for TV money? A board that was once 10- strong was whittled down to one man, and then he pleaded for new investment. Ralph put in much of his own money, and to that we should be grateful. But he knew what Halifax Town was about, and it was his own choice. As it was to run it out of business.

His hopes, as did ours in the end, rested on Bosomworth and Ham. As we all know, it was fruitless.

The club did the business on the field – just – once the 10-point penalty was imposed for entering into administration for the second time in six years (despite the previous CVA not having been paid up), but it was off the field where the biggest game was lost.

How Halifax Town could have been run in the way it was, with us supporters completely unaware of just how grave the situation was, is a disgrace.

Bad enough to think it owed £500,000 to the Inland Revenue. Who didn't do their sums right when the real figure was nearly twice that amount?
The club has been, in the opinion of many, run by amateurs, and as always it is the supporters who have been left with no club.

There is hope, however, that a new club can be formed, possibly three leagues below the Blue Square Premier, and to that end we must embrace the Supporters Trust. Many feel any new club must be run on better lines, run by the fans, for the fans. I feel it is the only way forward.

No more unscrupulous businessmen playing games with a club that has been loved by thousands over the years and sold down the river. We want a club that is run right, possibly named Halifax Town (2008) or Halifax Town FC. For me, with my aforementioned interest in the history of the club, it is imperative that the name lives on.

The King is dead, long live the King.

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