HALIFAX PANTHERS fans might feel their beloved club has suffered from ‘the curse of The Shay’ after their shock liquidation 17-and-a-half years after that of their original footballing groundshare partners Halifax Town.
However, the rebirth and subsequent progress of the round-ball team also provides optimism that there can also be a future for professional Rugby League in Calderdale.
FC Halifax Town emerged as a phoenix club soon after the original, founded in 1911, folded in 2008, and have worked their way up from the second tier of the Northern Premier League (level eight on the pyramid) to the National League (level five).
Halifax Town were Football League members from 1921 to 1993 and again from 1998 to 2002, and there are hopes of FC Halifax Town winning promotion to League Two, while they have twice been Wembley winners, in the FA Trophy finals of 2016 in 2023.
In the second of those years, the Panthers won the 1895 Cup at Wembley, but financial problems surfaced the following year, and the Northern Union founder members and four-times league title winners were wound up last Monday (February 9) over a tax debt.
That led to a scramble to salvage the game in the town and ensure there is as little impact as possible on a Championship fixture list that has already been adjusted because of Featherstone’s absence from the second tier after failing to come out of administration.
Halifax should have hosted Sheffield last Sunday, with the next match on the list being Barrow away on Sunday week, March 1.
They completed four matches this year, the most recent being an 18-14 Challenge Cup third-round defeat at home to Goole.
The line-up featured eight players signed over the close-season, including French fullback Tanguy Zenon (from Catalans) and Australian Jesse Soric, a Serbia international halfback from Gold Coast Titans.
Also involved was second rower Brad Day, who left Featherstone last month amid the turmoil there.