FC Halifax Town: It’s time to deliver, says skipper Brown on eve of crucial week

Halifax host Aldershot on Saturday (3pm) before a midweek trip to Maidstone and another home clash with Havant and Waterlooville next Saturday - all of whom are below Town in the National League table.

The Shaymen were well below-par in their 1-0 defeat at Chesterfield last Saturday, a result which has left them just two points above the relegation zone.

Aldershot are third-from-bottom and extended their club-record run without a win to 17 games on Tuesday night, losing 3-0 at home to table-toppers Solihull Moors.

“It would have been a big week regardless of who we were playing, but it makes it a bit more intense because all three teams are below us in the table,” said Brown.

“Two out of the three are at home. But you shouldn’t be playing at this level if you can’t handle any pressure.

“The pressure does exist, but once the game starts, you’ve got jobs to do, and if you do your jobs properly individually and collectively as a team, more often that not you’ll win games.

“We need to do our jobs defensively and offensively. I’m sure we will get the win that we much-need.

“But I’m fed up of talking, we need to deliver. We’ve shown in dribs and drabs, we’ve had a few draws.

“I’m not going to try and pull the wool over the fans’ eyes, we haven’t scored enough goals.

“But it’s a team responsibility, and we’ll stick together and we will get the job done.

“But we might have made things a bit more difficult for ourselves than we had to.

“I always go back to the draw at home to Braintree. On another day we could’ve lost the game, but I think that took a bit of wind out of our sails.

“But then we got going again and had really good performances, but performances don’t get you results at this level.

“I’d much rather take a bad performance and three points at the minute.”

Brown was part of the Town squad that was relegated from the fifth tier in 2016, so knows only too well the dangers of getting dragged towards the drop zone.

“If you know football, and you know this league, you know (relegation) is a possibility until you are safe,” he said.

“I studied the table all weekend and if you look at Barrow in 11th, they could still get drawn into it. No-one’s safe until they’re safe in this league.

“You’ve seen Braintree beating Salford on Saturday, no-one would have called that.

“So until you are mathematically safe, you can’t stop looking over your shoulder.

“Until you’re safe in this league, you’re in a battle, and your number one objective is always to get to 50 points.

“That’s still our focus. Yes, we might have made life a bit harder for ourselves by bringing on outside pressures on ourselves.

“But as players we’ve got to be able to handle that. We still need to see the job done and I’m sure we will.

“We’ve just made it a little bit more difficult than it could have been.”

When asked if he had a message for the Town fans ahead of the Aldershot clash, Brown said: “Just continue being what they are. The fans are great, they were great again on Saturday.

“They do help us. I totally understand the frustrations, I’m not going to sit here and say ‘don’t be frustrated’ because I’d be exactly the same if I was in their position.

“But we need them with us because they’re definitely a strength when they’re with us.

“I’m sure they will be. The majority of our fans are different class week-in, week-out, no matter what.

“We do need you, so stick with us, and we will deliver.”