Match abandoned! The Halifax Town games that were wiped from the record books

In his latest special feature for the Courier, Halifax Town historian Johnny Meynell looks at the games that had to be abandoned over the years.
Steve Spooner had two goals chalked off in the match with Northampton Town on 3 December 1982. Photo: Johnny MeynellSteve Spooner had two goals chalked off in the match with Northampton Town on 3 December 1982. Photo: Johnny Meynell
Steve Spooner had two goals chalked off in the match with Northampton Town on 3 December 1982. Photo: Johnny Meynell

Up to present, FC Halifax Town have yet to start a match and not finish it, but that couldn’t be said of the previous club, who featured in 15 matches over the years that ultimately ended with the referee shouting ‘match abandoned!’

This week I thought I’d take a look at these, matches that went ahead, were never completed, and were thus wiped from the record books.

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The main cause of abandoned matches has generally been one of four things; waterlogged or frozen pitches, bad light or fog, although in the case of the Halifax Town team which travelled to play the Grimsby Town reserve side for a Midland League game on 13 February 1915, it was the players themselves who determined the outcome.

Mick Buxton recovering from the broken leg he suffered in the ultimately-abandoned game at Peterborough on 14 December 1968. Photo: Johnny MeynellMick Buxton recovering from the broken leg he suffered in the ultimately-abandoned game at Peterborough on 14 December 1968. Photo: Johnny Meynell
Mick Buxton recovering from the broken leg he suffered in the ultimately-abandoned game at Peterborough on 14 December 1968. Photo: Johnny Meynell

Having had to walk to the ground in pouring rain from the train station, Town played the first half into the elements – a snowstorm on a swamp-like pitch – and by half-time found themselves 5-0 down.

The players retreated to a stone-cold dressing-room when several of the players claimed they were in no fit state to continue, and refused to take the field for the second half.

Key to the plot were Tom Birtwhistle, Jack Parton, skipper Joe Wishart, Albert Bartlett, Judd Wild, Percy Roscoe and Tom Mulholland, who had actually been making his debut, all of whom were subsequently fined 10s by the FA for refusing to play, with manager Joe McClelland’s pleas for leniency cutting no ice.

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Of course, the game had to be re-staged, but Town had problems then, too, for after both Wishart and Fred Edmundson had missed their train connections,

Frank Cannon, scorer in the abandoned game on 5 March 1914. Photo: Johnny MeynellFrank Cannon, scorer in the abandoned game on 5 March 1914. Photo: Johnny Meynell
Frank Cannon, scorer in the abandoned game on 5 March 1914. Photo: Johnny Meynell

Town ended up playing for half an hour with only ten men before recruiting an eleventh at the ground.

Result? They lost 5-0.

The match with Grimsby Town Reserves was the second that season which had been curtailed. On 31 October 1914, Town had been 3-1 up in their Midland League match with Worksop Town when referee Hutchinson called a halt to the proceedings due to bad light.

There were just eight minutes remaining. “I could not do myself justice,” he argued, but this from a man who had arrived six minutes late in the first place.

Danny Forrest scored in the game at Gravesend & Northfleet on 6 January 2007, the last time aDanny Forrest scored in the game at Gravesend & Northfleet on 6 January 2007, the last time a
Danny Forrest scored in the game at Gravesend & Northfleet on 6 January 2007, the last time a
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Worksop had arrived at Sandhall Lane undefeated and would leave the same, and the match was rescheduled for mid-April when the sides played out a goalless draw.

Coincidentally, there had been just eight minutes left of the match between Halifax Town and Scunthorpe & Lindsay United at Sandhall on 7 December 1912 when the referee felt obliged to call time, the first time Halifax Town had been involved in an abandonment.

The sides were locked at 2-2 when dark clouds gathered during the last fifteen minutes of the second half, reducing visibility to only half the pitch, leaving the ref with little option but to call time early.

The sides reconvened five weeks later, Town coming out on top, winning 2-1.

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The next time a match involving Halifax Town was abandoned was on 5 March 1914, this time a waterlogged pitch making play impossible.

Castleford Town were the visitors to Sandhall, but torrential rain turned the pitch into the proverbial quagmire, with pools of water lying on the surface.

Again, the scores were level – here Frank Cannon’s goal had cancelled out a strike by the visitors – though when the match was restaged on 23 April, it was Castleford who triumphed 3-1.

The last abandonment of Halifax Town’s pre-League days was up at Exley, a most inhospitable place on the best of days, when Mexborough were the visitors on 5 February 1920, a Thursday evening fixture.

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The visitors were leading 1-0 at half-time, but by then thick fog had enveloped the ground, and with no sign of it lifting, the referee was left with little option to abandon the match.

Town fared little better when it was replayed; Mexborough ran out 3-1 winners on 15 April.

It was also fog which led to the match at Doncaster Rovers on 22 December 1934 being brought to a halt after 57 minutes, with conditions being described as farcical.

The fact that here we had another referee turning up late probably didn’t help matters, and the match itself kicked off 34 minutes late.

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But 12 minutes into the second half, the ref called both captains together and told them of his decision to call the game off, as by now, it was impossible to see even the outlines of the players on the far side of pitch.

This was a season in which Doncaster would win the Third Division (North) title; at the time of the abandonment, they were leading 2-1, and the match was eventually played as the penultimate fixture on 2 May.

Rovers had by then already clinched the title, but Town turned the tables by winning 1-0 courtesy of Albert Valentine’s 33rd league goal of the season, and they would complete their fixtures two days later by beating the same opposition by the same score at The Shay to finish runners-up.

It would be another twelve years before Town featured in another abandoned match, this time a wartime fixture at Bradford City, one that doubled up as a North Regional League match and a Football League Cup qualifying match on Boxing Day 1942.

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There had been 67 minutes’ play when the ref stopped the game due to what was only described as ‘inclement weather conditions’, with the scores being locked at 1-1, Town thankful to City’s Millman for bundling the ball over his own line after keeper George Swindin had saved Bobby Davidson’s penalty.

The players left the field but with no improvement in the conditions no more action took place, though bizarrely the Football League ordered the result to stand.

One must remember, however, that during the war, things were done slightly differently at times. The sides met at The Shay for the second leg a week later, where Town ran out 3-2 winners to gain two valuable cup qualifying points as well as two in the league – a real four-pointer.

Following the end of the war, fog would rear its ugly head on two occasions over the years to put a stop to the action. The league match at Wrexham on 22 December 1962 was called off after just 29 minutes, enough time, however, for both teams to grab a goal, with Brian Redfearn putting the Shaymen ahead after nine minutes before Clive Colbridge hooked in an equaliser three minutes later.

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After 20 minutes, the mist descended, the floodlights were switched on, but the fog thickened and referee Arthur Edge was compelled to abandon the match.

Redfearn would score again when the match was replayed on 1 May, but Town would slip to a 3-1 defeat on their way to relegation from the Third Division.

And Northampton Town were the visitors on 3 December 1982 when fog caused what proved to be the last abandonment for a match at The Shay.

The game was exciting enough, with Town responding to Steve Massey’s second minute penalty to take the lead through goals from Steve Spooner in the 25th minute and Vernon Allatt three minutes before the break.

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The mist arrived early in the second half but the Cobblers still had to time to fashion an equaliser through Peter Denyer before referee Joe Worrall took the players off after 69 minutes with conditions worsening.

When there appeared to be an improvement and thirteen minutes had elapsed when the players came out again, Spooner crashed in his second two minutes in, but the fog thickened again and Worrall was forced to abandon the match with 78 minutes on his watch.

When the match was restaged on 1 February, Town were by then in the midst of a great run in the league, and goals from Steve Ward and Dave Staniforth gave them a 2-0 victory to extend a winning run to five games.

There have been three occasions when games involving Halifax Town have been halted due to pitches freezing over, the first of which was a Division Three (North) match with Bradford on 26 January 1952.

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Then, in what had been a lively game in tricky conditions, Crosby scored for the visitors after just seven minutes’ play. The game had moved into the second half when the ground started to freeze rapidly and become dangerous, and when Dave Mycock slipped on the ever-freezing ground, sustaining a nasty thigh injury, the referee’s concerns were justified, and there were 53 minutes on the clock when he brought the game to a halt.

The sides tried again on 10 March, playing out a goalless draw.

It was arguable whether Halifax Town’s game at Peterborough United on 14 December 1968 should have kicked off at all, but the decision by referee Ken Markham to start the game had dire consequences for Town full-back Mick Buxton.

He was giving chase to Mike Hellawell on the hard ground when he slipped and broke his leg just seven minutes into the game.

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Both managers – Alan Ball for Town, and Peterborough’s Norman Rigby – had urged Markham to call things off, but the official allowed the game to reach half-time before making the sensible decision.

The sides eventually played the game on 5 February, a goalless draw as Town began their promotion challenge, but for Buxton, he had the misfortune to break the same leg playing for the reserves at the beginning of the following season.

He eventually returned to the first team in April 1970, but though he may have had desires of moving into coaching, after losing his place in the side to Jeff Lee, the decision was probably made earlier for him than he planned.

On 7 January 1961 Halifax Town had fallen behind to Evans’ header after just three minutes in their match with Queen’s Park Rangers in a Third Division encounter at The Shay on a steadying frozen surface.

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Town had rallied and looked the better side up to half-time but there had been no further scoring when referee A Edge decided conditions were too dangerous to continue and abandoned the match.

A Tommy Holmes penalty helped Town earn a point in a 1-1 draw when the match was replayed on 17 April, two days after QPR had trounced the Shaymen 5-1 at Loftus Road.

Incredibly, the original home fixture with QPR was the second abandonment involving Halifax Town in just over a month. On 3 December 1960,

Town had raced into a 2-0 lead at Notts County with goals from George Whitelaw and Alan Blackburn, and had appeared to be the superior side on what was described as a ‘serpentine’ surface.

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The rain, which was falling before kick-off, got heavier, and with the floodlights switched on to compensate for the increasing gloom, the match reached half-time, only for referee F Cowan then to decide the waterlogged pitch was unplayable.

He called off the proceedings, his decision angering Town boss Harry Hooper, who had felt the conditions were reasonable enough – but then again, his side were still two goals up.

His mood was probably less tempered when the sides restaged the game on 23 March, a Peter Tilley strike giving Town a share of the spoils in a 1-1 draw.

Signed the previous week from Fulham, former Manchester United striker Mark Pearson made his first Town start in the Fourth Division match with Swansea Town on 23 March 1968.

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But his debut lasted just 59 minutes before referee Kevin Howley decided the conditions were too atrocious for the match to continue.

Rain had been lashing down since before kick-off, and the game had reached half-time with no goals scored.

With pools of water now forming on the surface, Howley inspected the pitch then let the second half commence, but conditions became farcical and after 59 minutes the ref brought things to a halt.

The teams played out the game on 2 April, this time in a blizzard, where volunteers had helped clear the pitch of snow in order for the game to go ahead.

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Les Massie twice gave the Shaymen the lead, but Town had to be content with a point in a 2-2 draw.

A waterlogged pitch was responsible the last time a match involving Halifax Town had to be abandoned.

That was in a Blue Square Premier game at Gravesend & Northfleet on 6 January 2007 where the Shaymen had got off to a terrific start when Danny Forrest struck, only for Gravesend to hit back through Luke Moore after 16 minutes.

Lewis Killeen’s goal regained Town’s lead, one they held up to half-time. But it was then that torrential rain began, leaving pools of water down the centre of the pitch from box to box, and though the second half commenced, an hour in the ball neither bounced nor rolled.

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Referee David Phillips took the players off the pitch, initially as a temporary measure, but with the elements failing to ease, he had little option but to abandon the match with 61 minutes played.

When the Shaymen returned to Stonebridge Road on 3 April, they were in a poor run of form and their subsequent 2-0 defeat extended a winless run to five matches.