Halifax Reach FA Cup First Round at Wembley as South Shields’ Dreams End

FA Cup Fourth Qualifying Round: FC Halifax 3-2 South Shields

There is not even a club sign on the outside walls of FC Halifax’s famous old stadium, the Shay, which the council is seeking to sell. Yet, an hour before Saturday afternoon’s kick-off, memories of Halifax Town’s remarkable FA Cup victory over a star-studded Manchester City in 1980 offered comfort during another difficult period.

Andrew Hodgson, a Halifax Town director at the time, recalls standing alongside City manager Malcolm Allison and a small group of officials as they inspected a pitch that was part frozen and part bog. Despite the conditions, the Fourth Division hosts went on to win 1-0.

‘The game should never have been played,’ Hodgson says over a beer in the supporters’ bar. ‘But Mal Allison wanted it played. He insisted. City were so cocky and so certain they could beat us that they thought the pitch did not matter. We felt as if all our birthdays had come at once. They were great days.’

We are in Halifax, West Yorkshire, for the sixth stage of our journey to Wembley, following all 13 rounds of the FA Cup by tracking one club until it is eliminated before continuing with the team that knocked it out. South Shields may be 20 places and one division below their hosts, but it is the club from the Tyneside coast that currently carries the greater ambition.

Among the South Shields directors is American investment banker Gordon McBean, who is helping the club access US capital markets. ‘There is a huge appetite in the US for the Cinderella stories of clubs from working-class places,’ McBean says. ‘But money and capital are needed to grow.’

South Shields have just endured another busy week amid the upheaval surrounding the arrival of their new Chinese-American ownership consortium.

When we visit the club a few days before the fourth qualifying-round tie, a Chinese executive offering commercial expertise is sharing a small meeting room overlooking the pitch with other members of staff. Lunch with South Shields manager Mike Williamson takes place to the constant noise of builders constructing a new reception area at the training ground.

The conversation with Williamson focuses on South Shields’ plans to develop players released by the academies of nearby Newcastle United, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. The former Newcastle defender offers a thoughtful assessment of the challenge. ‘Some lads are so consumed by fear that it stops them working hard. It can look as though they do not care, but that is simply a form of self-protection,’ he says.

‘They are frightened of failing. If they devote their whole life to something and still fail, they feel much more vulnerable. They do not understand that if you do not give everything, you will always have an excuse. That is the hardest part — the players who never quite fulfil their potential. It is not always because they lack ability.’

Williamson speaks with the authority of someone who played at every level from South Shields’ current tier to the Premier League, experiencing rejection and criticism throughout his career.

That world feels far removed from FC Halifax’s current reality. The club was created in 2008, just a month after Halifax Town were wound up, and climbed rapidly through the non-League system. But the Shay now looks worn and tired, with supporters doing much of the work to preserve its spirit.

This is the first stadium on our journey without an official club shop. For several years, however, the Supporters’ Club has operated a pop-up store from a storage area beneath the main stand. It sells everything from darts shirts and school satchels to ‘Spirit of the Shay’ gin, made by a local distillery. The money raised helps buy equipment for the team, including winter coats and covers for the training pitches.

‘We ask the coaching staff what they need and then pay the invoice,’ says Phil Merrifield, the Supporters’ Club’s vice-chairman. His wife, Lesley, is one of five people who help run the operation. ‘It is good to have this space,’ he adds. ‘For a long time, we had to load everything in and out of our car. We live near Doncaster, so it was a long way to transport it.’

The gratitude of the playing staff is unmistakable. Manager John McGrath, kit man Mark Bett and goalkeeping coach Jon Stewart each stop by to thank the volunteers as they arrive for the match, while McGrath’s players wave as they pass.

In the club bar, there are groans as it emerges that a match programme will not be published for the game, though the far greater concern is the jeopardy surrounding the club’s future at this iconic old ground, where Paul Hendrie’s 78th-minute goal in the mud sank City.

Calderdale Council wanted to sell it to the owner of the Huddersfield Giants rugby league team and though campaigners staved that off, there are now two other private bidders. The club’s owner, Leeds-based businessman David Bosomworth, whose investment on the playing side has kept the club competitive in the fifth tier, is not among them.

A tantalising reminder of how precious a big Cup run looks like was dangled in front of South Shields just a week ago when they arrived for their league match at Macclesfield. Home supporters were still wearing their half-and-half scarves from last winter’s third-round giant-killing against Crystal Palace. But Shields surrendered a 3-1 lead to lose 4-3 that afternoon and were outmuscled.

They carry their town’s motto — ‘Always Ready’ — wherever they go, but their technical game, prioritising passing through the lines above physicality, is by no means flawless. Aerially, they are vulnerable.

For all that strategic direction and focus, it is little less than a thumping for the first 45 minutes against Halifax. Conor Carty, the 24-year-old Irish striker signed this summer, heads the home side ahead from Connor Douglas’ cross. That Shields aerial weakness again. 

Max Bardell poaches a second from close range and barely 20 minutes in, Carty has contributed a third. It might have been five at the interval, by which time Ben Tollitt has crashed a shot against a post.

Shields’ former Leicester City academy player Toby Onanaye adds such spirit when arriving from the bench that you wonder why he did not start. He scores spectacularly, after team-mate Cedwyn Scott’s goal has brought Shields back into it.

But it is an emphatic win for a side whose player budget has been in the bottom quartile of the National League these past few years. So much lies up ahead for South Shields, who we leave behind after a month on this journey.

The ribbon was cut only last week on a cafe, called The Coal Face, which their charitable community foundation has opened at the Harton and Westoe Miners Welfare building, site of an old colliery pithead, which co-owner Geoff Thompson has saved from redevelopment.

The miners’ sanctuary is alive and thriving once more and the foundation has generated £45million in revenue for the community in the past five years.

A promotional film about the club has been developed to stimulate creative interest as the Shields’ owners look to put its story before audiences in China or the US.

Tyneside musician Jade Thirlwall, the former Little Mix singer and successful solo artist, wants to help and will look to do so as she arrives home to the North East for the 2026 Mercury Prize event in Newcastle this week. She and her family are confirmed Shields fans. This club’s journey will be fascinating to follow.

Halifax are the ones who feel in greater need of the FA Cup’s restorative powers, though, and they will head into the first round proper — a holy grail for lower-league sides — with the folk memory of clobbering that ultra-confident Manchester City side.

Back then, Halifax manager George Kirby recruited the help of a hypnotherapist who claimed he had previously placed a curse on Allison for an unpaid debt — though people generally feel the state of the pitch made most difference.

Nearly 50 years on, Halifax need all the help they can get.