Journey to Wembley: Halifax reach first round in a beloved stadium they may soon lose – as ambitious South Shields' FA Cup dreams fizzle out for another year

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

There is not even a sign carrying the club’s name on the exterior walls of FC Halifax’s famous old stadium, which the council wants to sell, but memories of knocking a star-studded Manchester City side out of the FA Cup in 1980 are providing sustenance in tough times, an hour before kick-off on Saturday afternoon.

One of the Halifax Town directors back then, Andrew Hodgson, is remembering being part of the small group, including City manager Malcolm Allison, who gathered with the referee for an inspection of the half-frozen, half-boggy pitch on which the then-Fourth Division side triumphed 1-0.

‘The game should never have been played,’ Hodgson relates, over his beer in the supporters’ bar. ‘But Mal Allison wanted it to be played. Insisted it should be played. City were that cocky. So convinced that they didn’t even need a good pitch to beat us on. We thought all our birthdays had come at once. Great days.’

We are here in Halifax, west Yorkshire, with South Shields, on the sixth instalment of our journey to Wembley told through all 13 rounds, following a club as far as they go and then picking up with the team who knock them out, all the way to the final. And though the team from the Tyneside coast are 20 places and one league lower than their hosts, they are the ones with all the ambition now.

With their directors as they draw up here is American investment banker Gordon McBean, who is helping Shields 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 it takes money and capital to grow.’

Shields have just spent another week in the maelstrom of activity that is accompanying the arrival of their new Chinese/American ownership consortium.

Supporters raise funds for the club to buy equipment by selling merchandise 

When we drop into the club, a few days out from this fourth qualifying round FA Cup tie, a Chinese executive currently providing commercial expertise is hot desking with other staff in a small meeting room overlooking the pitch. A lunchtime in the company of Shields manager Mike Williamson takes place against the din of builders creating a new reception area at the training ground.

The discussion with Williamson centres on Shields’ ambitions to develop players who have not made it at nearby Newcastle United, Sunderland and Middlesbrough’s academies, and the former Magpies defender certainly brings nuance to how that might happen. ‘Some lads are so full of fear that it stops them working hard. It looks like they don’t care when they do — but that’s just a self-protection mechanism,’ he says.

‘They’re so scared of failing that if they invest their whole life and fail, they feel far more vulnerable. They don’t realise that if you don’t give your everything you will always have an excuse. That’s the toughest part — the lads who never really fulfil it. It’s not always a question of lads not being good enough.’

He speaks from the perspective of a football career which saw him play at every level from Shields’ current tier to the Premier League and face rejection and criticism along the way.

This all feels a million miles away from the reality of FC Halifax, the club formed in 2008 just a month after Halifax Town were wound up. There was an acceleration up through the non-leagues, but the Shay looks a careworn place now, and it is the fans who are keeping the spirit alive. 

This is the first stadium on our journey which has lacked its own official club shop but the Supporters’ Club have been providing a ‘pop up’ one for the past few years, selling everything from darts shirts, school satchels and ‘Spirit of the Shay’ gin, produced by a local distillery, from a storage space beneath the main stand. The proceeds go towards buying equipment for the team, from winter coats to training ground covers.

‘We ask the coaching staff what they need and settle the invoice,’ says Phil Merrifield, Supporters’ Club vice-chairman whose wife, Lesley, is among a group of five people helping him out. ‘It’s good to have this space,’ he adds. ‘For a long time, we had to load it in and out of our car. We live out in Doncaster so it’s a long way to bring it.’

The evidence of how much this means to the playing staff is self-evident. Manager John McGrath, kit man Mark Bett and goalkeeping coach Jon Stewart all call in to express their gratitude as they arrive for this game. McGrath’s players wave as they walk past.

Halifax fans are proud of their club, who are regulars in the National League play-offs

South Shields have big ambitions under an arriving Chinese/American ownership consortium, but their FA Cup journey has come to an end

Managers Mike Williamson (left, South Shields) and John McGrath (right, Halifax) shake hands

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.

A good FA Cup run can boost the finances of a lower-league club for seasons to come 

Non-league players often balance the demands of football with other jobs, though the fifth tier is mostly professionalised

Home supporters enjoying a chat during the half-time break as Halifax beat South Shields 3-2

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.