When the name of a football club is mentioned, more often than not it will evoke a memory. Like many others, I was first introduced to the sheer size of the English Football League through the wall chart that used to come with Match Magazine at the beginning of every season.
Each club was represented by a small cardboard shirt and I used to rush up to my room every weekend, putting all the teams in order. My poster which was the centrepiece of my bedroom proved an attraction for visitors to our house, and you could guarantee it would be fiddled with behind my back.
Back then, Manchester City could only dream of being in the positions my dad used to put them in; sometimes they even got promoted overnight. One team I remember being intrigued with was Halifax. Halifax Town as the football club was then known were one of the teams featured on the wall chart. Of course, the town is no longer represented on Football League posters but the ground was still on my hit list and a free Saturday allowed me to tick off the Shay.
We had beaten the league champions in the League Cup final at Fleetwood at the end of last season, and on this occasion it was the reds who came out on top.
It was also the debut for our brand new supporters band, Cleggys Midnight Runners; I was on the ukulele. Of course, I was hungover when I woke up on the Saturday morning at There was a rough plan in place between myself, Rob and Lee for our trip to Halifax even though none of us were particularly up for travelling over to West Yorkshire. I scrambled through the kitchen draws looking for any form of medication that would see me through the morning. The train from Atherton to Manchester was only a minute late meaning I got to Manchester in decent time.
