In January 2006 Matt Blackburn received an email from Kidderminster Harriers fan and member of Kidderminsterβs supporters football team Pete Lewis asking if Halifax Town had a supporters football team as they wanted to play a game before the Town V Kiddy game on the 4th February. Matt knowing full well we didnβt have a team, immediately said yesAfter a couple of hastily arranged training sessions on Savile Park AFC Halifax were born.
AFC Halifax in all shapes, sizes and ages took to the field, against our now good friends Kidderminster Harriers, and found themselves on the end of a sound beating, but we did have the conciliation of scoring the final goal of the game through message board user Demonite (Although some say we had 13 players on the pitch at the time)Since that special day AFC Halifax have gone on to bigger and better things and are now firmly established as one of the leading lights of the Internet
Football Association and compete in the IFA League, comprising of over 70 teams up and down the country. We have always finished in the top 10 of this league, and when you consider you are up against teams with the fan power of Manchester United, Manchester City, West Brom, Preston North End etc a top ten finish is something we can be very proud of. We have had two of our players, David Thompson and Adam Probets represent England in the annual England V Scotland game, we have had one of our younger players, Matthew Thomspon represent FC Halifax Townβs first team on two occasions in 2012.
The team has reached the national cup semi final in 2011 only to loose to Preston the best supporterβs team in the country. We enter two teams in the annual WorldNet competition at Boddington Hall in Leeds every July and the Vets team won the tournament in 2010, and were runners up in 2011, and the open age team reached the semi final in 2012. We have had the privilege of Steve Payne and Paul Sykes play for us, two FC Halifax Town promotion winners. We have been invited twice to play at Aggborough Stadium, the home of Kidderminster Harriers, and also at Deepdale the famous home of Preston North End . We are the current holders of the Tommy Gildert Memorial Trophy
We also support the supporters club fundraising by holding various fundraising events, and probably our biggest achievement is that we have raised in the region of Β£25,000 for macmillan cancer support, by doing various things ranging from a naked calendar, race nights, running the annual Leeds 10k and last year we scaled the Yorkshire 3 peaks.
As you can see AFC Halifax is not just about playing football, all players support FC Halifax Town home and away, and since 2006 we have introduced a few new people to the joys of FC Halifax Town, who are now regular supporters. We have a number of social occasions throughout the year which include sponsoring FC Halifax Town games.
We are always on the lookout for new players and we have a weekly training sessions with between 2/3 games a month. If you are interested in joining the team please email myself at shinbone@blueyonder.co.uk.
Our organising committee is made up of Stewart Heaton (Chairman), John Barker (Manager), Andrew Hemblys (Treasurer) Martin Probets, Ben Fawkes, John Luders & Ash Addy
AFC Halifax, One Love-The Shaymen