An offbeat look at both Halifax Town and The Walkers Stadium

In advance of tomorrow's game, Glynis Wright reminds us how Halifax started and also takes a look at the Walkers Stadium.

Now here's a little pre-Play-Off Final poser for all you Bull-ish lot out there. What's the connection between a World War Two bomber, and a Conservative foreign minister under the Chamberlain government? A penny to the bloke at the back with the ginger toupee! Both laboured mightily under the name of Halifax, the first being a precursor of the much more famous Lancaster jobbie, Guy Gibson, The Dambusters, and all that, and the second being incumbent Foreign Secretary around 1939-ish. But he simply had to go once Winnie took over from Neville Chamberlain - Lord Halifax, I mean, not the bombers, although oodles of brassed-off fly-boys fresh in from yet another abortive flak-ridden 'show' over the Reich might well have thought differently at the time.

But back to our errant Lord Halifax, and the circumstances surrounding his somewhat swift departure. Strangely, he was offered the job of Prime Minister after Chamberlain resigned, but didn't take it. Why the bum's rush, then? Oh, dear. Pre-war, he allegedly cosied up to Herr Hitler far more than was considered legal and decent at the time; some accounts have it that while the bulk of Winnie's thoughts were quite understandably preoccupied with France and The Low Countries, with a few choice Norwegian Fjords chucked in for good measure, Lord H. was quietly putting out diplomatic feelers via Italy with the intent of hammering out a peace deal with Hitler behind Churchill's back. The matter had been discussed-ish by the War Cabinet, but Winnie's 'go forth and multiply, my son' style reply concentrated minds wonderfully, it seemed. Not at all conducive towards a long and happy time in post, that one, especially after the far more bellicose Winnie took over from wet-blanket Chamberlain.

No wonder Churchill took such a dim view of Lord H's extracurricular capers. It's a bit of a rum do when a bunch of jolly awful goose-steppers suddenly decide to lay claim to Johnny-Foreigner territory just 20 miles across the briny, isn't it? Well, I mean - they didn't even bother to leave their calling-cards, did they, and that would never do in Britain's strictly compartmentalised and class-ridden society circa 1940, now, would it? As for the unfortunate Halifax, I'll just let Captain Mainwaring of Dad's Army fame have the last word on that one. Stupid boy.

But back to Halifax, the West Yorkshire town. Wool was very much the name of the game back in times of yore, 'trouble at t'mill', and all that. In fact, back in the days when (allegedly) men were men, and moorland sheep had enough good sense to keep well out of the way of same, the entire place was practically carved up by the big wool magnates between them. It takes a hell of a lot of hard manual labour to turn a woollyback's coat into warm coats and fleecy carpets, which is why, between 1801 and 1851, the population almost trebled, rising from below 9,000 to over 25,000, which is a lot of factory-fodder crammed all in one place whichever way you want to look at it.

And, as you'd expect, Victorian overcrowding and squalor on that scale brought in its wake Victorian-type maladies; not having much at their pharmaceutical disposal that actually worked back then - with cutting-edge surgical discoveries such as antiseptics still to come, and (some types of) anaesthetics still to render insensible the bulk of Britain's sick and injured going 'under the knife' - local medics could only lament in publications like 'The Lancet' that it was a pretty rare working class person in the town that actually got to see out their fifties.

And now for the nice bit. In 1852, a group of local people concerned about lack of decent banking arrangements for working people got together in a local boozer did the 'self-help' thing, and brought into existence a very familiar name indeed. Yep, it's a monstrous carbuncle on the face of banking these days, but back then, the Halifax Permanent Benefit Building Society, as it subsequently became known, was very small beer indeed. Appropriately so, as inaugural meetings were held in a local boozer called the Old Cock Inn. Those of you with mortgages courtesy of what is now commonly known as 'The Halifax', just remember to smile sweetly while paying your next monthly instalment, there's a love.

There also happens to be another 'Halifax' elsewhere, but over the Big Pond, in Nova Scotia, to be precise, which is Canada, as near as dammit. The next time you fly to The Big Apple, look out for it; sometimes, more-than-usually-eccentric transatlantic flight paths take you right over the place, gurt great icebergs and all. I particularly remember from my geography lessons (don't you dare ask how long ago!) the surrounding waters being listed as a prime source of cod, on account of the close proximity of The Grand Banks to the territory. Back then, so fruitful was the fishing, all those itinerant cod had to do was wave a white flag at trawlers as they approached, just like hailing a bus: now, thanks to sheer greed on the part of several countries who really should have known better at the time, it's been completely 'fished out'.

As for the football club who provide Saturday's opposition, they were founded back in 1911. Since then, their relative fortunes have waxed and waned about as greatly as the phases of the moon, a flighty state of affairs best summed up by the motion of a tart's underwear - up and down pretty much all the time, but never staying 'high up' for any significant length of time. Their loftiest-ever League finish was back in 1970-71, when they finished third in the old Third Division. Typical of their rotten luck, though, that two up only was the norm back then.

Our West Yorkshire chums also happen to rejoice in a most peculiar nickname - The Shaymen. For readers of a certain hippy-ish bent (and those who fondly remember an early 90?s pop group of the same name - 'Ebenezer Goode' was the chemically-inspired hit that got parents across the land really frothing at the mouth, remember?), such a strange monicker will readily evoke wistful thoughts of Native American medicine-men and similar depriving themselves of food and/or sleep, taking hallucinogenic drugs in mind-blowing quantity over a period of several days, then gradually working themselves up into one hell of a visionary trance, 'speaking in tongues', prophesying, and all that mystical jazz. Rumour has it that just supping the local ale exerts a similar effect these days, but not having ready access to the town?s Drug Squad - or its main dealers! - I wouldn't really know!

Mind you, having seen Town play several times before, and badly, perhaps labouring under the influence of strong intoxicants whilst watching them is more of an atavistic survival mechanism than anything else! Having said all that, I'd much rather leave what happened to West Brom when we played them in the Cup about 13 years ago well out of it; suffice it to say they absolutely creamed us at their place, and there was nothing drug-inspired about that defeat whatsoever - unless you want to accuse my lot of being completely 'under the influence' themselves, of course. As for little moi, I'll simply plead the Fifth Amendment on that one, and keep schtum. OK?

Since that horrendous day, I've witnessed games at the Shay on around three separate occasions; the first, with Albion and in the League Cup, was bloodless, but we hit them for five come the second leg, at our place. Vengeance is mine, sayeth The Lord, not to mention one hell of a lot of Baggies with elephantine memories! Numbers Two and Three? Both with The Bulls, courtesy my Hereford-lovin' other half. The first was an unmitigated disaster, the home side carving through the cider-slurpers as if they weren't there. The star of the Shaymen?s show? A lanky young chap by the name of Geoff Horsfield, who managed an all-too easy hat-trick that day. Little did I know that before too long, he'd not only be taking up arms in the uniform of our deadliest local rivals, Birmingham City, but heading off in the direction of the Hawthorns just a few years after that. One ray of sunshine to be found on what was, by anyone's lights, a pretty miserable 90 minutes for The Bulls that afternoon? Their soup! Tomato, it was, flavoursome, gloriously-hot, cheap, and a real rib-sticker, too.

My most recent visit to the place was during 2004-05, with Hereford once more providing the reason for travel. Much to my surprise, the old away end was no more, and a spanking-new one, much more civilised, put in place instead. That game was also memorable because of the 'seated' view I had of events - without being 'officially' seated, so to speak. So few itinerant Bulls were there that day, one could remain, bum parked on terra firma, aka the terracing steps, yet still follow events at both ends perfectly well.

Oh - and your lot did emerge eventual victors, having fallen behind totally against the run of play in the first half, restoring parity then banging in the winner during the course of the second. And I'm hoping like hell I never have to go there again in the near future, too. How come? That flaming hill running around the ground, for starters; the relative steepness of the incline is not at all nice if you happen to have a mobility problem. Were you at that game, and noticed beforehand someone staggering around looking very much like the last survivor of some horrible massacre or other - yep, 'twas ME!

My final thoughts pre-Final revolve not around The Shay and all who sail in it, but the venue for this coming Saturday's bean-feast, Leicester City, who now spend their dutiful Saturday afternoon's toil at The Walkers Stadium, and not their former 'nutty' domicile, Filbert Street. In other words, I've come full circle. Both 'Im Indoors and myself attended a game at the 'giant crisp packet' shortly after it first opened for business approximately three seasons ago, the game being a Nationwide Division One encounter with Neil Warnock's Sheffield United, neither keeper having to trouble their spinal columns unduly, despite the visitors' domination of proceedings for large chunks of the game.

Impressions? Very big, very modern, as you would expect - but this time round, it seems there?s a bit of a twist to the tale. One of the prime reasons for City upping sticks and moving to pastures new in the first place was the almost-perpetual shocking state of the Filbert Street pitch: just fulfil a quarter of Leicester's fixtures in any given season pre-21st century, and it was a near-on cert their playing surface would bear a pretty strong resemblance to a First World War battlefield not long after the obligatory massive shelling of no man's land, quickly followed by a gallant, but ultimately suicidal 'over the top' for everyone concerned. Every time Albion played there I made disparaging noises, and, no doubt, so did followers of other clubs. As we'd reached the Premiership for the very first time ever that year, the change of venue didn't really register with us until we actually decided to 'get the place done', but, once it finally happened, the resultant celebrations must have near-on reverberated right through the city proper and beyond.

"Whoopee!" howled the fox-lovers, free at last from the perpetual mud-bath that was their former home - but, not so fast, there! 'Im Indoors tells me today that over the course of the past calendar month, The Walkers Stadium has been in active use for no less than twenty of those days. Not having seen the current state of play with my very own eyes of late, I might look a bit previous here, but I would reckon it's a pretty fair assumption to make that their pitch will not exactly be of the best by the time The Bulls hit town.

Your Final is not strictly my party, of course, but even looking at things from an interested neutral's point of view - with a Hereford-lover for a partner, no choice, really! - I now get the gut feeling this very much smacks of an: 'It's only the Conference, they won?t mind too much' sort of attitude, condescension dripping from every pore. Or, put another way, had this undesirable situation been the case for the 'pukka' Finals taking place at the Millennium Stadium, all the competing clubs would have gouged the competition organisers' eyes out long before now!

But that's a minor quibble; enjoy your Saturday, every blasted minute of it. I'm also given to understand that Halifax have sold far less tickets than you have, so if you should fail, it most certainly won't be for the want of support. A play-off final is an unforgettable experience, believe you me, and not strictly because of your side coming out on top, either. It's the myriad little incidents, small observations, the noise, the colour, the raw emotion, the craic, both before, during and after, that makes the occasion so memorable. Leaving the stadium as members of a different League is but the icing on the cake. Enjoy.

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