BRIGHOUSE Town Women are no more, with the club having now officially been rebranded as Halifax FC Women.
First-team boss Rob Mitchell admitted the club only had the news confirmed on Thursday morning, with the decision announced publicly just before midday on Friday.
Having amicably split with Brighouse Town a few months ago, the club continued to play under that name until the end of the season, while moving their home games to Eccleshill United.
But the full rebrand is now complete, with Mitchell telling the T&A: “We’re definitely glad it’s all done.
📢 CLUB ANNOUNCEMENT 👇 pic.twitter.com/SWKHjFyxlJ
— Halifax FC Women (@HalifaxFCWomen) May 19, 2023
“We made the decision to move from Brighouse just before Christmas to focus on what we felt we needed to do as a club to push forward, and massive thanks to Eccleshill for putting us up after that.
“It’s been a difficult process to get all this over the line, even though we’ve had great support from the FA and the Women’s National League.
“At our level, you can’t just make such a huge change easily, and there’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
“The longer the process went on the more worried we were getting, but we needed it to go through to avoid that confusion with Brighouse Town, as we’re two separate clubs, and this has given them the chance to set up their own women’s team now and build their own legacy.
“I helped set the junior system up at Brighouse a long time ago and I’d been there years before this move, so I still really want them to succeed.”
With Brighouse and Halifax less than five miles apart, and the club remaining in the FAWNL Northern Premier Division, there shouldn’t be too much disruption to the current staff.
But Mitchell warned: “I’ve made the mistake before of saying we’d keep the team together, because while I’d love to do that, in football, there’s always other opportunities that could become available to the players.
“But we’ve been training in Halifax at Calderdale College in recent years anyway, so that’ll stay the same.
“We have got our home ground confirmed for next season too, but I can’t say where that is until it’s announced publicly.”
Mitchell mentioned Brighouse’s legacy, but he is excited for this club to build their own in Halifax now.
He said: “We’re not directly associated with (National League side) FC Halifax Town, but with them and Halifax Panthers in particular, there’s a real sporting heritage in the town.
“We’ve got the potential for growth and development (and Halifax FC Women will be running a new reserves side, as well as junior ones, from next season), and it’s good to be settled.”
The first team recovered brilliantly from a slow start to finish fifth in the FAWNL Northern Premier Division, and their final game as Brighouse Town Women saw them beat Leeds United’s Under-21s 7-0 in the West Riding Women’s County Cup final.
Assessing the campaign, Mitchell said: “I’m pleased with it.
“It was a tough start, but it wasn’t terrible, it’s just that results didn’t go our way.
“We had a few injuries, didn’t have as many points on the board as we’d hoped and we didn’t win games we were expecting to, which felt like a slap in the face.
“But I knew once we got a few people back fit, things would pick up, though I didn’t expect it to be by so much.
“We just kept winning tight games against teams around us, and the girls should be really proud because it was unbelievable to finish fifth like we did.
“We’re basically a grassroots club at national level, and we don’t have the backing of some of those sides in our division.”
Mitchell was full of praise for Leeds’ youngsters in Brighouse’s farewell game too, saying: “We couldn’t really win.
“If we’d lost, it’d have been the biggest West Riding County Cup final upset ever, but we weren’t expecting to get any praise if we’d won either.
“Leeds had a fantastic young group, and I didn’t felt they got the exposure they deserved from the club for reaching the final, but they were a credit to themselves.
“I’d just told our girls to go out there and enjoy themselves but Leeds made it a frustrating start for us by applying the low block.
“I thought we were a bit complacent early on, but then Leeds were no mugs and this was their biggest-ever game given they were all young girls.
“That being said I thought we were outstanding in the second half and really pulled away.
“Winning a cup final and coming fifth in the league was top work from the team.”
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