FC Halifax Town may not have produced a performance for the ages against Worcester City but the hard fought 2-1 win over was enough to please manager Billy Heath.
The Shaymen managed to see of any Worcester attempts at clawing back into the game following Tyler Weir’s pulled the deficit back to win after goals from Matty Kosylo and Tom Denton gave the away side a comfortable two goal lead.
The performance may not have been the most convincing of wins for Halifax, but it is all about the points at this stage of the season for Heath.
“We didn’t play fantastic today but it is a difficult place to come to. Everyone thought it was going to be a foregone conclusion but it’s not and no game is like that, we said that in the build-up. We didn’t reach the heights that we have done before in this game but we’re at the business end now and it doesn’t matter how you get the three points.”
It was a strange game down at Victoria Park. The referee may have grabbed himself some unwanted attention with a flurry of questionable decisions which had both sets of fans scratching their heads.
Robert Massey-Ellis was the man in the middle and his calls had even the Halifax manager wondering what he was witnessing.
“It was just bizarre. It seemed to be if anyone made a challenge and they didn’t seem to quite get it right it was a yellow and I was fearing that we may have been down to six or seven a side at one point because it was literally every single challenge that went in. That isn’t the way the game is, certainly not in non-league football. People make challenges and get things wrong but you can’t just brandish a yellow card.”
Another decision that the home fans especially will feel aggrieved by was the red card for goal scorer Weir. After powering his penalty home, the Worcester man ran over to the ball to collect it as quickly as he could following his goal and knocked over Sam Johnson in the process.
This was deemed enough to deserve a second yellow and even Heath has said that the player shouldn’t have been sent off.
“I’ll always be honest so to send a boy off for trying to get the ball out of the net was just one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen. We benefitted from it but there was no way the boy should have been sent off.”
Denton returned to the score sheet finally, bagging his first goal in 2017 with a trademark powerful header. The big striker held off two men and leapt to meet a Josh Wilde cross and his effort bounced in off the bar.
His manager was delighted to see him get back amongst the goals and insisted he did exactly what was needed of him.
“He’s been out of the team for a while and he’s had this niggling injury in his heel and we introduced him at half time and to be fair to him he’s done exactly what we wanted him to do. It was a great finish and another great ball in from Wilde and he’s finished it really well.”
The Shaymen will not have a game next Saturday due to Brackley Town’s progression through to latter stages of the FA Trophy.
The break may be welcomed by those affiliated with the club as a relaxing day off but Heath believes it may have come at a bad time for his side. After going seven games unbeaten with six wins, it may have been better for Halifax to just keep going.
“I’d have rather have gone to Brackley on Saturday. We don’t need a break at the minute, we’re winning football matches so we don’t want the break at the minute. I’d have happily gone to Brackley, it’s a tough place to go but when you’re winning games you just want the next game to come. There is nothing we can do about the break so we have just got to keep winning games.”
The postponement of this game means that Heath’s men must travel down to Brackley on Tuesday the 4th of April. A lengthy trip for any team to face on a Tuesday night.
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