FC Halifax Town

Halifax sits in the Calderdale hills, an old wool and toffee town that spent decades watching Halifax Town A.F.C. play down at The Shay. When that club went into liquidation in May 2008 over an unpaid tax bill, the ground didn't stay empty for long — FC Halifax Town took its place the same year, picking up the town's football rather than starting one from nothing.

The Shay itself had already carried Halifax's rugby league side for years, and the football club that formed in 2008 inherited a stadium built for a bigger crowd than non-League football usually draws: just over 10,000 capacity, north of 5,000 of it seated. It gave the Shaymen — the nickname borrowed straight from the ground's name — a home that looked oversized for the level they were about to start at.

They didn't stay at that level long. Successive promotions through the Northern Premier League in 2009/10 and 2010/11 took the club up two divisions in consecutive seasons, and a play-off final win over Brackley Town in 2012/13 pushed them into the National League. Two FA Trophy finals mark the club's best days at Wembley: a 1-0 win over Grimsby Town in 2016, and another 1-0 win, this time against Gateshead, in 2023 — a gap of seven years between the two trips, each settled by the same scoreline.

The blue and white of Halifax now plays out at The Shay in front of crowds built on that inherited history rather than a fresh start, in a corner of West Yorkshire where the ground had been part of the town's sporting life long before this particular club existed to fill it.