Moved to Halifax from Brighouse in 1980, used to watch for the results in the Courier but never went to any games.
Then in 89 I think it was with nothing else to do one Sunday afternoon decided to go along with a couple of mates who were big Fax fans.

We were playing Widnes that day and I seem to remember Neil James scoring a hat trick.

Widnes I am sure you will recall had a host of star names like Sorrenson, Offiah, Grima etc the atmosphere was just fantastic and I was instantly hooked and became a regular at every game home and away.

Before the season ended I managed to talk the wife into going and it was like a duck to water for her.
With both of us on board my 2 sons were soon going as well.

After years of not having much leisure interests in common this was it Rugby League the family favourite

Even the Friday night A team games would attract over 1000 spectators in the middle of winter sometimes with us queing to get in through the 1 top turnstile!!

I cannot honestly say what was my first game as my Dad took me and my brother up Thrum Hall from being a little kid from around the age of 5 so I guess in 1967, he even took us to Wembley in 1969 at the age of 7 as he was friends with the great Colin Dixon who had moved to Salford by then and played for them against Cas.
My Grandad was a Fax fan as well so its in my blood now 4 generations with my kids being fans, he went way back to the thirties bless him telling me tales of how he went to Wembley in 1931 and how Halifax fans thought getting to Wembley from King Cross was like walking up to Thrum Hall from town and they were going to walk there! He also had to sadly miss the 1939 Final as his Dad (my great Grandad) was very, very poorly. One loveley moment was when he met an old kid who was a York fan both in their eighties and they talked about that 1931 Final like we would talk about the 1987 Final.

Anyway I was taken to watch Fax until the mid seventies by my Dad but can't recall many games other than the 1972 JPS Cup Final win at Odsal and running on the pitch like kids used to. He refused to take me to the infamous Cawoods game as he saw that defeat coming. He had started to take me to see a very good dare I say Bradford Northern team around then but I never liked them as that was Bradford not Halifax, we did not switch alliegence it was just they had a great side and my Dad is a RL fan (or was he no longer goes after SL and summer rugby).
What hooked me for life?
Well two games really, one was the Yorkshire Cup win against Cas the year after we had finished bottom of the old 2nd Division and Cas were a 1st Division club then in 1978, what a shock I came home with a huge grin on my face.
The other was the Challenge Cup match against Wakefield when we beat a good side and there was 13,000 in Thrum Hall it was rocking, what an atmosphere and I walked all the way home to Ovenden beaming.
Like most the 1987 CC Final was great and for a good time so was the 1988 Final but the games against Wigan the year before in the league were awesome matches which we drew, theere are many other games too many to mention but the highs keep you going through the lows.

It's easy to forget what impact our game has on people's lives. It's clear that it's not just something you can switch on and off on a Sunday. A win sets me up for the week, while a loss can set me back until Thursday. It seems clear from reading these posts that local kids should be the club's target market!

I wouldn't swap this bug for anything - not even when officials do their best to ruin this game and the RFL would do well to read some of these stories. Perhaps then they'll give the lower leagues and their fans a bit more time and respect.

Would love to get back to the glory days. That day in 1987 was the best of my life.

My first ever game was (if i remeber correctly) in August 1987 in the good old john smith's yorkshire cup against a team called Mansfield Marksmen ) believe we won the game 56 -0, and i have been going ever since, It was a group of mates who used to go every week, sorry to say i am the only left out of the group who still go.

When i met the Wife in 1999, i told her back then if she wanted to see me on a sunday she would have to come to the games, lucky for me (well maybe not ) she got hooked, and we go most weeks.


I also used to tape Scrumdown every week, and have kept them all, currently stored in my moms loft so Greg i may still have a copy of your claim to shame

(Greg)My claim to shame when i was young was that i was once on Scrumdown stood where the players came out and a Hull player got sent off and i could be seen making rude gestures to the player. Oops

The Supporters Trust have offered many times to go out and about around town with a few players and free kids tickets but it never gets taken up. We even came up with the idea of paying for Benji the Walshs open top bus and taking the players around town and up to the big supermarkets. I was looked at as if I was mad , the main thing our club needs to do is to increase our crowds .
You cannot go out once a season either and expect it to work you have to go out regular and the players are the most important commodity of selling the club.You cannot keep sitting in the Shay and expect folk to come to you , you have to go out and get them.
My favourite game was probably the infamous "what a waste of money game " at Thrum Hall our team was fantastic that day.There have been lots of highlights for me most of them at Thrum Hall I cannot muster the same feelings at the Shay it is Souless.

1960 Halifax at Thrum Hall V Rochdale Challenge cup game.
Attendance 18,000 Fax won, I was hooked

i was injected with a 'accelerating fax supporters formula' whilst in the womb.

other than that, 1st memories stood in the scratching shed at TH freezing! remember a game against Wigan around xmas time i think it was a draw, where it must have been 10 below with wind chill, but to see 9000 blue and white wearing heros stood there bracing it like it was 25 degrees left a mark on me!

quote from my dad

" it doesn't get better,........ or worse than this son!"

"daaaad can we go now??!!"

dad "whaaaaaat!????? no chance!!!!!!!"

will be getting wet a mount 'notso' pleasant tonight aswell i predict!

i also think the noise of fax fans whilst asleep (for the whole match!) on my grandmas knee at wembley in 1987 at 14months old had something do do with it!

must have seen wilfs 'try' and JP save 20 times now though!