“I can’t wait for it, I wish the game was tomorrow” - Town boss Wild ready for club’s play-off showdown

Pete Wild was appointed just 10 days before the start of the season, during a chaotic pre-season which saw manager Jamie Fullarton depart and Wild inherit a half-built squad.

But the Town boss, whose only other senior management job was two caretaker spells at boyhood club Oldham, picked Halifax up, dusted it down and has galvanised the squad into unlikely promotion contenders.

Next Friday’s play-off eliminator is the biggest game yet in Wild’s time at The Shay, and his 59th as a manager.

“Every game for me is a big game because I’m very young in my managerial career and I’m still learning my trade,” he said.

“It’s another great challenge for me as a manager, and for all the staff, to pit our wits in such a big game.
“We want to give as good account of ourselves as the players do.”

A self-confessed football addict, Wild already has the air of a child eagerly anticipating Christmas morning when looking ahead to the Boreham Wood match.
“I’m obsessed with football, I’m obsessed with getting better, and I’m obsessed with finding the best way to get better,” he said.

“I’m fully focused on the game, I can’t wait for it. I wish the game was tomorrow.

“I want the game to come now.

“But I’m quite relaxed about where the players are, I think they’re in a good head space and they’re ready to go, so that allows me to feel a bit more relaxed and not be as intense with them as I need to be.
“I think we’re in a good place, the club’s in a good place, the club’s on the way up.

“I think what the fans have done (in their fundraising efforts) shows the belief in the town and shows that football is on the up in the borough and hopefully this can be the next step along the ladder of pushing this club back to the promised land.”