Halifax Town story: Season 1 Part 1

My first season as manager of Halifax Town started very badly, with the fans unhappy at my appointment, and the board not pleased at my pre season results. To top it all off, I had a £0 transfer budget, and I had £3k to spend on wages. I knew some wheeling and dealing had to be done.

My first priority was to offer everyone a new contract with the pay from £25-£50 less. This worked a treat as my wage allowance rocketed to £6k, giving me room for some free transfers or loanees.

I then decided to let go of a large number of my first team and reserve team squad. 7 players were sold for a tidy sum of £100k, and 2 of the reserve team had finished their contracts and were subsequently released. These were:

Darren Stamp (ST) - £10k
Jake Wright (DLC) - £15k
Danny Forrest (AMR/ST) - £10k
Jonathan Hedge (GK) - £10k
Lee Butler (GK) - £15k
Andy Campbell (ST) - £30k
Greg Young (DLC) - £10k
Micah Bleau (AMR) - released
Simon Rawnsley (MC) - released

After this, my squad looked very threadbare, so I desperately needed to get some recruitments in. On a £90k transfer budget, I wouldnt have got too many players, so instead I put forward a request to the board to get a parent club. Thankfully they chose a Premier Division club, Wigan Athletic, which I immediately reccommended to them. A new partnership was formed the next day.

Using Wigan as a loan signings pinata, I got Tomasz Cywka (MC) on loan, having to pay nothing in wages, and getting a great player for a season. I took no more from Wigan at this stage, but I would sign 2 more loanees from them until the January window.

I signed 2 other players on loan in the summer as well. Kelvin Etuhu (AMR) arrived from Manchester City and Carl Ikeme (GK) came from Wolves. Then I bought (yes bought!) 3 players from League 1/2. Tomi Ameobi (ST) was the first to arrive from Leeds for £10k, then I bagged Sean O'Hanlon (DC) from MK Dons for a cool £30k. The last to arrive, on deadline day, was Brendon Moloney (DR) from Nottingham Forest for a fee of £25k. This left me with a £6k wage budget, and a £25k transfer budget. So far so good.

Part 2 coming up! I will move on to the first half of the season and how I won over the fans and the board with some decent results. Read all about it!