Had a discussion with a mate - can anyone fill out the real story - we finished third in Super League with Pendlebury as coach - how did we then end up playing off to stay in the championship?

Cheers lads

1998 third in super league.Money troubles ensued meaning that we only spent half our income on the players budget in 2003 and inevitably got relegated and struggled in championship in 2004 culminating in that win against york at widnes.

What caused the money problems?

Tony Gartland was funding the club but left over a dispute about mergers.The club was trying to compete against the top of super league and without his input it was running up debts.

I think Gartland was about 95 when the issue regarding merger question with Bradford? guessing the 99 season money problems was due to lack of money from sale of TH and then we kind of struggled until 2003 as said when we more or less gave up trying to fund a competitive squad and got battered

Think your spot on with date of 95.3 years of no TG mean't debts built up and took the proposed shay money in 98 and we never recovered.I remember a director standing on pitch in 99 saying no players would be sold and within a week it was goodbye Clinch/Chester.21 years on from TG and i'm still glad i didnt have to endure the Bradfax Bluebulls even though both our clubs are now championship fodder.IMO Halifax ceased to be a rugby town after the decisions made in 2003.

Like many SL clubs we were simply living above our means.

also the ground capacity at the time limited the max gate - limiting big game receipts

Not how i remember it..can't remember an all ticket game at TH.The capacity was 10k we let everyone in and give the attendance as 9800

So what part did Big Nige play in it all (apart from the disastrous Blue Sox name)?

Was he around at the sale of TH and distribution of those funds? The year we finished third we were already at the Shay - was Wood in charge then?

Big Nige came up withe worlds most unmarketable name, I won't even repeat it, aided by 2 dumb mascots and there you have a plug in your marketing revenue. He was around at Thrum Hall but not sure exactly when he left the sinking ship, glad he did as it just ended up being buoyant and is still afloat now.

I would have said Billy and Bluey were a huge success as matchday mascots - young uns loved em.

The era of Fax moving to the Shay was fantastic and the club can only dream of getting back to those days. Regular crowds of 4-6,000 and some fantastic rugby. A personal highlight was Daryl Cardiss' full length try against Leeds and the introduction into games of a young, fired up Andy Hobson. Sadly the demise set in too quickly with the stadium at that time probably more of a hindrance than anything.

Wood was at Fax 1996-2001 so yes on all counts.We survived a CVA in 1999.I liked Billy/Bluey but you could see they were quite intimidating to little kids.

The problem was 4-6K crowds were pretty poor in comparison to what we used to get at Thrum Hall. Hell we used to get 2K sometimes to watch the reserves. Like in 98 the home play off game with St Helens only attracted about 4K people. SL on those crowds without a big money backer is simply not sustainable.

Very true.Used to love the A team games at the Hall.A lot of fans never made the transistion to the shay sadly and many that did binned it after 2003.