FC Halifax Town: Teams won't relish visiting The Shay, says Denton

Halifax v Bradford - Tom Denton. Picture by Darren Murphy

Halifax start the campaign at home to Aldershot on Saturday and had the second-best defensive home record in the league last term, with only three teams losing fewer games on their own patch.

Denton, who has briefly played at Conference National level before with Alfreton, is bullish about Town’s chances in the fifth tier, especially at The Shay.

“I’m a bit foreign to the league but I fancy us down at The Shay against some of the London teams,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll fancy playing us.

“We’ll be like we were last year. We’ll be durable and hard-to-beat.

“We had a few nil-nil’s at half-time last year but that’s not a bad way to go. That’s a good foundation. If you’re solid at the back, that wins you a few games because you can go and win 1-0 or 2-0.

“It is a tough league but is there a massive difference (from the Conference North)? You don’t know. We’ll find out in a few weeks when we’ve played our first five or 10 games. I fancy us to do well.”

Denton hopes he can get 20 goals this season after coming up one short of that total in the previous campaign.

The striker believes Town’s impressive performances against National League sides in the FA Cup last season bode well for the campaign to come.

He added: “We played Dagenham twice and Eastleigh twice and for three out of the four games we were the best team by a long way.

“It was only down at The Shay where Eastleigh did a job on us.

“But we looked good in those ties and that can only give us confidence.

“It’s just a case of getting as many points as we can as soon as we can.

“I personally want to try and go for a top 10 finish. You don’t want to be just playing to finish one place above the relegation zone. You want to finish as high as you can and I think we’ve got the team that can do that.

“Obviously you throw the fact that we’re part-time into that as well but you just need to get as many points on the board as you can early on an take each game as it comes, take each month as it comes and see where we are at Christmas.”