FC Halifax Town: “We’re here as serious contenders, on merit” says Wild as play-off preparations begin

FC Halifax Town boss Pete Wild says his side can’t wait to get going ahead of their return to training on Monday.
Pete Wild. Photo: John BradleyPete Wild. Photo: John Bradley
Pete Wild. Photo: John Bradley

The Shaymen look set to face Boreham Wood away on Saturday, July 18 for a place in the semi-finals of the National League play-offs, away to Harrogate Town.

Wild will have four weeks to work with his squad, and is chomping at the bit to get back to work, 14 weeks after Town’s last outing when they lost 1-0 at home to Ebbsfleet.

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“I’m really excited,” said the Town boss. “We’ve had a lot of time to put stuff in place, we’ve had a lot of opportunities to get ready for this.

“We’ve known for a long while that if we did play the play-offs, we’d play Boreham Wood, so we’ve had chance to have a look at them and what they’d offer.

“We’re really excited about the prospect of trying to lead the club back to the promised land.

“The lads are buzzing, they’re keen to finish off what they started, and really excited. it’s a great opportunity for them to showcase their talents on what is the biggest non-league stage.”

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Speaking about the achievement of having officially secured a play-off place, Wild, who was only appointed 10 days before the start of the season, said: “I said on the website the other night, and I really meant it, that when we came into the club, we were nailed on relegation favourites, and everybody couldn’t believe what was going on.

“For the players to galvanize themselves, buy into what we wanted from them and finish where we have done is an excellent achievement, especially with the moderately low budget we had to work with.

“All things considered I think it’s been an excellent achievement by everybody at the football club, and we should be really proud.

“Now we go fresh into the play-offs with a chance to keep proving people wrong and the doubters who keep writing us off.

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“We go into it with no pressure. We’re obviously desperate to do well, but the pressure comes from the teams who’ve thrown lots of money at it.

“We go into it with a clear mindset that teams have got to beat us and the pressure will be on them to do that.

“I don’t want it to sound like a free hit because we’re not here to make up the numbers, we’re here as serious contenders, on merit, to try and get back to the Football League.

“But the teams around us had expectations at the start (of the season) of being promoted, not just in the play-offs, but being promoted.”

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When asked what his squad can expect when they return to training next week, Wild said: “We have protocols to follow in terms of group training, contact training etc.

“That will allow us for the first week to get a grip of where we’re at with the players and where they’re at in their physical state.

“They’ve all had programmes to follow and we’ll know within two minutes on Monday morning whether they’ve followed those to the letter or not.

“It will be a mixture of technical and physical to try and get where we need to be.

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“But in the short amount of time we have, we aren’t going to be able to do a full pre-season and get everything we need to get.

“It’s going to have to be a fine balance of trying to prepare ourselves for three games in whatever period of time it will be.

“It’s going to be an interesting one. I’ve been watching every game that’s been on so far and you look at some of the injuries players have picked up, they’re maybe not as sharp as they could be.

“You look at the tempo of the games, they’re very much a pre-season feel to them.

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“And if you look at all the games so far, it’s been a mistake that’s won the game.

“So I think we need to be ready as much mentally as we do physically.

“We know exactly what we’re doing. We’re trying to pursue a couple of games to prepare us in a matchday sense and hopefully we’ll be able to get them sorted out quickly and get them in the diary to have a game before we go out and play.

“I look at it as a tournament. It’s basically a tournament that if you do well, there’s a massive prize at the end of it, and if you don’t, then you’re bombed out straight away.

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“It’s basically tournament football now. It doesn’t matter how you play, it’s all about winning.”

Wild said there were no injuries to report and that Michael Duckworth, who has been sidelined with a shoulder injury, will return to training with the group.

“He might not be as much ready for contact training but he will be back training with the group, which is another positive for us.”

Boreham Wood have been linked with a move for Chesterfield goalkeeper Shwan Jalal.

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When asked where he stood on the issue of teams involved in the play-offs being allowed to register new players, Wild said: “That’s being discussed in a meeting today (Friday) but in our opinion, whoever was signed with the club when the season was postponed should be the only people you can bring in for the play-offs.

“Why would you be doing anything else?

“From my side of things, why would you want to bring in anyone else, because they’re the lads that got you there.

“Morally, it might just be me, but why would you then go and say ‘sorry mate, I know you’ve got us here but I’ve brought somebody else in now’.

“For group cohesion, I don’t think it’s great.”

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