FC Halifax Town: Bosomworth takes stock as plans for next season start to take shape

Town chairman David Bosomworth says planning for next season can now begin with the club almost guaranteed to be safe from relegation.

Bosomworth says next season’s playing budget isn’t quite finalised “because it’s all part of a bigger budget”.

“We need to understand what’s happening with third-party suppliers and our own costs,” he said.

“But we’re looking at things now, and I have a meeting with Jamie (Fullarton) in the near future. So we’ll see how things progress.

“It’s early days because we wanted to make sure we knew which league we were in.

“Reaching 51 points, and with our goal difference, we’re pretty safe.

“We’d like to see an improved performance than against Maidenhead - but that was the third game in a week, and we had a couple more injuries.

“I don’t think anyone wants to make excuses. It was just a poor performance, particularly after an excellent performance against Solihull and a battling performance against Ebbsfleet.”

Bosomworth remains committed to the club’s full-time model, saying: “Yeah, I can’t see anything changing at the moment.

“That’s dependent on what Jamie’s requiring, and whatever, but anything to do with the season-tickets doesn’t really impact in one sense what we’re doing in general on the field.”

Bosomworth says cash reserves will have been utilised this season and last season, and that the club will “continue to match use of reserves with our income to support what we’re doing”.

“But it still would be fantastic if we have a great response on the season-ticket initiative and we reach unprecedented numbers. That would help us, and that’s why it’s vital we do well with this.

“We’re trying to engage as effectively as we can. Halifax and the surrounding area isn’t the wealthiest area in the country, and we don’t enjoy the gates of a Hartlepool, a Wrexham or a Leyton Orient.

“We’re aspirational about getting the club back to where Halifax Town AFC has previously been, and into the Football League.

“But gates of 1,500 do make it difficult to balance the budget. We have to do well on the pitch and produce players that can generate additional revenue, like Vardy, Gregory and Tuton have done.

“That’s what we’ve got to be striving to achieve.

“We run the club as well as we can, we run it as a business, and we run it properly.

“We are utilising reserves now, because it is more expensive in the National League.

“It would have been easy to have let the two strikers (Manny Duku and Devante Rodney) go back to their clubs, but we wanted to keep faith for the fans and the manager and the team.

“They’d made an impact, but given there’s an acceptance that we’re safe, it would have been easy to have saved the money and not spend it.

“But I think it’s important we do the best we can on the pitch for all concerned. It gives us chance to have a look at the players and who knows what happens in the future.

“It might have been sensible to travel down on the day to Orient, but we will be doing an overnight stay, because of professional pride, we’re playing the league leaders and we need to go there as prepared as we can out of fairness to the other clubs.

“We want to give our players the best chance of spoiling the Orient party because they look like they’re going to win the league.

“The league has got more expensive, so we’re bound to be dipping into reserves if we can’t bring in extra revenue or anything other than a serious cash benefactor. And those aren’t around the corner, and aren’t always in the best interest of a club.”

On Town’s record this season on the pitch, Bosomworth says The Shaymen have been superb defensively, but admits there is room for improvement going forward.

“Our defensive record has been outstanding,” he said. “Are the fans right to feel it’s been hard work with the lack of goals? I’m sure everybody would be saying the same thing, and I’m sure Jamie’s not alone in that.

“Everybody wants to see goals raining in, and we are in an entertainment business.

“But we’re also in a results business. You have this balance where you want to entertain, but sometimes you’ve got to get an ugly result.

“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got a team people want to come and watch, but it’s got to be effective and have a chance of improving on whatever position we gain this season.

“Yeah, there’s probably been too many nil-nil’s, and I’m sure we’ll be trying to address that.

“People want to see a winning side, they want to be entertained, they want to see goals, but I suppose if you’re trying to build a team, the best place to build it from is the back.

“We’ve been very tight, but perhaps not been quite as good gong forward, and that’s something I’m sure we’ll be looking at.”