FC Halifax Town: We want to develop our full-time model, says chairman

The Shaymen switched from training two nights a week to at least three mornings a week this season, and have established a base at the University of Leeds’ sports centre near Weetwood.

“We want to develop it, not come back from it,” said Bosomworth when asked if the club was committed to the model.

“At the moment we’re three mornings a week, so can we get to four mornings a week?

“So there’s things we need to look at and try to strengthen what we do facility-wise or what have you.”

On the transition to full-time, Bosomworth said: “You do have different things, like salaries, players in digs or more training and the costs with infrastructure.

“But at the end of the day it gives us a better chance,and that’s what we’re striving to develop moving forward.”

Town pocketed £136,000 in prize money and TV revenue alone from their FA Cup, money which Bosomworth says is crucial to swell the club’s coffers after revealing in his programme notes for Saturday’s game against Wimbledon that the club came into the season with a six-figure gap between income and expenditure.

“That’s absolutely vital,” he said of the boost in income. “We knew we had a gap to fill.

“There’s various things that contribute to help filling that and obviously the fact we’ve had a televised game has been huge for us.”

When asked if the extra income will mean more money for the playing budget, the chairman said: “Obviously we’ll have a look and see what we can do, because we’re not halfway through the season yet and there’s a lot of games still to play.

“I feel sure that we’ve got a chance to strengthen a bit on the way.”

The chairman said it had been a season of mixed fortunes so far for Town.

“A bit yo-yo really, but you’d probably put a lot of that down to injuries, having to play a few square pegs in round holes, you lose a bit of cohesion with different players playing in different positions,” he said.

“But hopefully some of those are now coming back and we can look to try and picking up some points in the league.”

Bosomworth says the club has to be realistic about what it can achieve this campaign.

“Obviously if you put a run together you’ve a chance of getting in the top seven,” he said.

“It’s a little bit harder at the minute but we’ll keep striving to keep doing as well as we can.

“I think we’ve strung our best halves of football together in the first-half against Morecambe and Wimbledon, that’s where we’ve really challenged teams, so that’s encouraging.

“Hopefully Ben Tomlinson isn’t far away from fitness. You just want all your players fit to have a fair chance.”

Bosomworth says competing in the National League continues to get tougher.

“It is harder because there’s more benefactors, and let’s be honest, the National League’s totally unrecognisable from 10 years ago,” he said.

“Some people have said it’s not as good as 10 years ago - it most certainly is.

“It’s never an easy league, but you look at the parachute payments, the benefactors, the bigger gates - all these contribute.

“Money doesn’t guarantee you success as we’ve seen in the past with clubs like Eastleigh or Forest Green, but it helps and it gives you a chance to try and bring some of your targets in.”