In the first of a two-part interview with the Courier’s FC Halifax Town reporter Tom Scargill, The Shaymen’s new manager John McGrath discusses joining the club, why it was the right move for him and who might be following him from Buxton.

New FC Halifax Town manager John McGrath says he is joining a club that matches his ambitions.

The 46-year-old was announced as Adam Lakeland's successor earlier this week, signing a 12 month rolling contract at The Shay after two years with Buxton in the National League North.

McGrath, who watched the youth team's National League Academy Cup win at St George's Park on Wednesday night, says the move to Halifax is the next natural step for him in his career.

"Yeah, absolutely. I'm always quite a progressive, forward-thinking manager, I want what's best for myself and my family, the players I coach and the football club I'm at," he told the Courier.

"Halifax Town was an attractive prospect for me, it's a really, really good football club, good fanbase and a club that I felt matched my ambitions."

McGrath, who applied for the job in 2019, was interviewed once during the process and was informed over the phone last weekend that he'd got the job.

When asked if he spoke to any other clubs, McGrath said: "There was a few sniffing around, a few contacted my agent.

"I turned one down last summer and there were a few this year but once I'd sat and spoken to David, looked at the squad, it was a no-brainer for me to choose Halifax Town."

McGrath will be joined at Halifax by his long-time assistant, former Derby County, Rotherham and Crawley defender Pablo Mills.

Town are currently without a goalkeeping coach after the departure of Paul Oakes to Radcliffe.

On whether any other staff would be joining him from Buxton, McGrath said: "Just Pablo currently. Myself and David had a long meeting (on Wednesday) regarding everything in and around the club, a lot of on-the-pitch stuff, and off-the-pitch stuff, so we're going to dissect it as we go on.

"For now, just Pablo but we'll look to add to make the club stronger."

And on the possibility of any players following in his footsteps from Derbyshire, McGrath said: "You know what you trust, and the squad we put together over the last two years at Buxton, we've got some really, really good young talent there.

"We went quite young, we went with an average age of 21, 22. The purpose was for them to be coached properly, to try and bring them through to play higher.

"Tate Campbell left us in January and signed for Forest Green and played every game for them.

"Tai Sodje, we had a six figure bid accepted for Tai, who'd scored 18 goals by Christmas, the only thing that stopped that was he was playing with a broken metatarsal, so he failed a medical, but that's probably going to go through this summer.

"So we left really, really good young talented players at Buxton and there's definitely four or five that can step up.

"It's just a matter of making sure whoever we bring in fits the squad and having a look at what we've currently got, and adding seven or eight bits of quality."

McGrath added: "There's the nucelus of a really, really good squad there, 14, 15 currently contracted and there's a few we need to discuss options with.

"But it's all about me adding probably seven or eight bits of quality to make us really competitive."

McGrath says he is aware of the club's constraints financially, and has experience of working with a limited budget.

"Myself and David have had conversations when I was at the interview process, we've had conversations around it," he said.

"My restrictions at Buxton were the same, we went part-time to full-time two years ago and reduced the budget going full-time because the model the chairman wanted was working with good young talents.

"There are exceptionally good talented players out there who can be bought and don't require big wages, you've just got to be a bit crafty with what you do.

"There's a lot of talent out there. With the influx of foreign players to the Premier League, that means other players drop down.

"I won the National League with Burton Albion and it's a vastly different league to when I won it in 2008-09. It's a really competitive league and once you take the jump out of the National League into the Football League, a lot of the teams tend to stay there and be competitive."