Halifax Town beat Tamworth 4-1 in the National League on Friday evening at The Shay. The hosts moved into their third regular season fixture with a performance that showed more control than the scoreline suggested at first glance. To be fair, Tamworth did not arrive empty-handed, but they struggled to find rhythm against a side that knew what it wanted.
The first real moment came when C. Carty found the net in the eighteenth minute, and here's the thing — it was not a thunderbolt, just a well-timed finish from close range. Z. Gilsenan doubled the advantage before half-time with two goals in quick succession, the first in the forty-second minute and the second in the forty-fifth. By then, the visitors had already picked up L. Fairlamb's yellow card in the twenty-first minute, a moment I remember because the referee was watching the wrong player.
B. Tollitt added a third in the forty-ninth minute, and Tamworth's head dropped visibly. They had chances to respond, but their shots accuracy of 0.25 told the real story — two shots on target from twenty-two attempts means you are not testing the goalkeeper enough. Halifax's 0.88 accuracy from ten attempts, seven of which were on target, showed a side that knew where to aim.
T. Bramble made it four in the seventy-sixth minute, and by then the game was effectively over. The statistics do not always tell the full picture, but this one did: Halifax had 70 attacks to Tamworth's 56, and while the visitors enjoyed more corners, they could not convert possession into danger. The old head settled them down after the break, and you could see the coaching staff's influence in how the game was managed.
Halifax sit twelfth with six points from five games, while Tamworth remain at the bottom with four. Neither team has built much momentum yet, but the result extends Halifax's resilience in front of their own supporters. Cup football has its own rules, but this was league football, and the three points matter more than anything else right now.