FC Halifax Town: Bosomworth targets promotion on the eve of big kick-off

Halifax are joint-favourites to win the Conference North along with AFC Fylde, with Heath having guided North Ferriby up to the National League last season.

Bosomworth says the playing budget is at a “similar “ level to last season and that Town are making a “strong push” for promotion.

“It isn’t promotion or bust (for Billy Heath) but our objective is promotion,” he said.

“There’s probably a dozen sides in the league that are saying that though and probably clubs with bigger budgets than ours.

“But it isn’t all about the budget, as Billy’s North Ferriby showed last year.

“It’s all about making a good start, trying to get into a good position and get that momentum going.

“If we get a good start and win some games, that might help boost the crowd as well.

“We’re fiercely ambitious. We’ve always said the Football League is our objective so we’ve got to get ourselves back in the National League first of all and take it from there.”

Bosomworth admits he is disappointed to have only sold around 700 season tickets despite setting a target of 1,700.

“We’re well behind where we thought we were going to be, particularly with the offer of discount vouchers, free drinks and so on,” he said.

“Having said that, that’s not a criticism of anybody. We’re really grateful for those people who have invested in the tickets.

“I think for the scheme to have worked we needed to sell significantly more.

“The net effect for us will only be born out once we get into the season and we see what the gate receipts are.

“We wanted to get more floating voters - people who ordinarily wouldn’t buy a season ticket and who might have been happy to get one for the sake of the club.

“It’s the first time we’ve done anything like this, we’ll review it for next year and whether we can afford to do it again we’ll only know as the season unfolds.

“If it ends up at 700 that might be a good start.”

Bosomworth bemoaned the difficulty in assembling the Town squad this summer.

“It’s been the hardest pre-season we’ve had in terms of bringing players in,” he said.

“It’s a difficult league for signing players into, other clubs have a lot of money to spend and there’s a lot of agent involvement.

“Every deal seems to take an age.

“Plus we’ve lost Scott McManus and Matty Brown to long-term injuries, so you’re thinking you have a squad of 19 or 20 but you’re down two before you’ve even kicked a ball.”