A first for me. A 'Question and Answer' session with a club's manager. I'll be honest, my primary motivation was that it'll be decent material for the book. I wasn't disappointed in that regard tbh.
Flying solo as I suspected it'd finish a bit too late for Hannah. Not sure a room of 60 or so diehard Town fans was really the place for her anyway.
To say that Town fans are 'glass half empty' folk is an understatement of biblical proportions. I'm not without sympathy. Life hasn't exactly been kind to them over the years. Let's be right about it, for many they're watching a different team to the one they started with. Their first love having gone bust, FCHT are the new manifestation.
The evening started with food. Lasagne, chips and garlic bread. I know, in Halifax. It was good. And free. Can't fault the club for that. Or the manager for taking questions in the way he did.
A quick look at the forum shows he might as well not have bothered to be honest. Again, I know I'm an interloper to a certain extent. A newbie with no real emotional connection, but f*** me, I'm not sure what they wanted or expected.
The club are skint. That is clear. If I had a quid for every time Fullarton said 'financial constraints', I spend the rest of my days free of 'financial constraints'.
But that's the reality. I warmed to him.
It seems the rapid decline in form after a promising start resulted from only having 12 or 13 fit players. He described four performances in particular as 'abject'.
The move to full-time is a staged process. 3 sessions a week this year. They'll move to four and then 'proper' full-time. A gym is being kitted out at the Leeds training ground to help address 'soft tissue' injuries and help with rehabilitation. They have GPRS for training and games (20 of the 24 in the National League do apparently).
There were more revelations. Seems McLeod was binned off due to laziness and a bad attitude (he didn't say precisely that, but with what he did say, he didn't need to). Reading between the lines, there's some sort of sports psychologist input to address Kosylo's temper issues.
I asked a question on Hannah's behalf. The answer wasn't bad. She was made up when I told her on my return. Had a good chat with the commercial manager too. Seems they're keen to attract more kids like Hannah to the club and are actively looking at ways to achieve that.
If he keeps them up (and I think he will), I'd stick with him for now. A work in progress.....