Yep, I'm afraid that the more detail I hear in this rumour the less comfort I have in it.
I won't deny that there's a part of me that wants the eggers to stay out of our ground. This has sprung from their habits over the past 17 years, obviously. I see the stadium redevelopment fiasco and the Abbott bid as two things that nearly wiped out football in Halifax forever, whether they intended to do that or not. Halifax Town is too precious to me for anyone involved in/supporting those two things to be forgiven. Then when there's no sign that they will ever want to cooperate with any schemes to improve the pitch, or donate a penny of their own money towards the Shay's shortcomings that they're just as loud at condemning, it makes me think they deserve whatever they get. We'd even be able to see if Abbott has any money to speak of when he knocks on the doors of Halifax RUFC and Heath RLFC to ask if his rugby club can sleep over for a few nights.
But behind the idiots in control and their shills online, there are many people who have no dog in the fight and just love their local rugby team, who are good sportsmen despite their ignorance to all our gripes with them. There are kids with heroes, who are active because they've got the rugby bug. I honestly value those people as much as I do our own fans, and it'll be their Halifax RLFC for as long as it lasts, and I still (pigheadedly) believe Halifax RLFC isn't fundamentally a force for evil.
When representing Save Our Shay I did so without doing down either sport or club. I went for the bid itself (unjustifiable), Abbott's own integrity (nonexistent), and the way he helped run the club (terribly). There was endless material there anyway, and I'd still want to make it work for both football fans and eggers fans. I'm not sure if it's entirely relevant to Save Our Shay because it doesn't threaten the ground, but every detail asks a new question, and it has massive implications for the eggers fans.
First priority for Town is to get the pitch sorted and stop perfectly normal winters ruining our grass and fixture schedule. Yes, getting rid of the eggers would go most of the way to stop it being a mudbath by February. But it's short sighted. You never know when the current board could leave and be replaced by one who actually undergoes business with a shred of decency. Then after ten years, how does the missing money from the rugby rent get supplemented? The council may receive a fraction of the eggers' rent an average of four months late currently, but it's decent money and better than none. I still hate them for playing cat-and-mouse with the council over it, but this situation isn't permanent.
It's a really unappetising dichotomy between letting things stay as they are with the pitch underfunded and failing to drain and becoming impossible to play proper football on, and all but killing off the eggers for good when they're evicted. I don't know how we're going to sort this out otherwise though, maybe oust the Fax board but that's not really our job.
A quote from Pliny Harris from town board,indicitive of the general concensus.
