FC Halifax Town: Bosomworth hoping to add more new faces soon

Defender Martin Riley and goalkeeper Sam Johnson have joined the club permanently so far this summer, but Bosomworth says their attempts to recruit further have been hampered by various factors.

“We’ve not stopped since the end of the season,” he said. “At 8am on the morning after the Chorley game we were discussing various things.

“We knew how difficult it was going to be. Market forces in the National League North are affecting both leagues.

“One team especially in that league is spending extremely heavily which distorts the market.

“It’s taking longer to sign our targets we’ve set in place than we’d hoped, and in some cases we’ve missed those targets. We’ve lost one or two but gained one or two.

“We’ve retained some of last season’s squad and added Martin Riley and kept Sam Johnson.

“We’re trying to bring more new faces in as quickly as we can. But we’re two weeks behind other teams and that does have a massive impact.”

Assistant boss Mark Carroll also feels the levels of money in non-league this summer are also hindering the club’s recruitment drive.

“There’s a lot of money floating about now in the Conference and the Conference North,” Carroll said.

“Some people want to come here because they see the potential, but others class it as a job and look for the money. That’s their prerogative , but that’s what we’re up against.

“But there’s a lot of potential here. We got 8,000 at The Shay against Chorley and there’s probably only Stockport in the division we’ve just got out of that could match that.

“But a lot of players are choosing to go to Conference North clubs rather than Conference National.”

Carroll is also cautiously optimistic about Halifax’s chances in the National League next season.

“With the squad we’ve got and the additions to it, we should be embracing the challenge,” he added.

“When we went into the Conference North with Ferriby people said ‘just make sure you finish fifth from bottom’ but we ended as runners-up.

“I’m not saying we can do that but why not? If you’ve got a group of lads who are in it together, are prepared to work hard and want to achieve good results you’re halfway there.

“We do have the advantage of not having to rebuild a full squad like last summer - we know what they’re about and the majority of them have played at this level before.”