The FC Halifax manager John McGrath’s father-in-law is the top British mountaineer Alan Hinkes OBE and he knows that he has something of a summit of his own to scale, as he walks straight from the team bus to the pitch, set in the lee of Cheltenham’s mist-shrouded Cleeve Hill.

McGrath is all-too familiar with this setting. He brought his Buxton team here in the FA Cup’s second round last season and was on the fringes of a major upset – 2-1 up at half-time – before watching the game fall away.

Cheltenham are a much stronger club, 12 months on, but our few weeks with McGrath, an Irishman who 25 years ago was playing for Aston Villa against Liverpool in the Premier League, reveal his ambition for the National League side he joined this summer.

We’re alongside him and FC Halifax on our journey to Wembley, told through all 13 rounds, following a club as far as they go and then picking up with the team who knock them out, all the way to the final.

A mist-veiled evening at Halifax’s Shay Stadium, a few weeks back, revealed much about 46-year-old McGrath. He arrives with his two-man coaching team for a Q&A with fans who, when the evening’s proceedings are finished, form a long and orderly queue to talk to him, one-on-one. The team’s four-hour drive to Southend awaits the following morning. But McGrath has no eye for the clock.

This managerial journey is one he hadn’t anticipated when, aged 32, a serious foot injury ended his long career with Burton Albion. He secured a master’s degree in broadcasting and media at Staffordshire University and had begun spots for Sky Sports and BBC local radio, yet here he is on ‘the grass’ he’d never wanted to leave. 

His wife Fiona is Director of Public Realm at Islington Council and their time together is some weeks limited to a coffee at Doncaster station, near their home, when he drops her before daybreak. ‘It’s our little half an hour,’ he relates. ‘We’re ships that pass in the night.’

Cheltenham edged out FC Halifax 2-0 in front of 2,961 fans to reach round two

Cheltenham boss Steve Cotterill shakes hands with Halifax manager John McGrath

Ground staff put up the goalposts at EV Charger Points Stadium, also known as Whaddon Road

His club’s fans are partisan – 350 are here – and yearn for League Two, though there’s not a fortune at McGrath’s disposal. The club’s owner David Bosomworth was at the club when it went bust in 2008 and they say that experience left him painfully aware of the need for sustainability. Fair enough. Bosomworth has declined to speak to us. He is not at Cheltenham.

An hour out from kick-off, McGrath is handing out training vests for the warm-up as well as observing things – it’s a modest backroom team – and that defeat last season perhaps plays on his mind. ‘Cheltenham tweaked it that day and personally, I think I should have done the same,’ he says. ‘I’m a better manager, 12 months on.’ 

The club could badly use the £50,000 prize money that a win here would bring, not to mention the accompanying shot of exhilaration.

McGrath already belongs in the margins of the tournament’s history. He and his son, Jay, a Doncaster Rovers player, became the first father and son to play in the same team in an FA Cup game when McGrath, Mickleover Sports’ player-manager for their preliminary-round win against Coventry Sphinx in 2019, fielded his 17-year-old boy.

Halifax seem up for this challenge. Their players go looking for their kit in their bus’s luggage compartment before the driver has jumped out to produce the key. But Cheltenham have come a long way in the past year. 

The former Burnley owner Mike Garlick bought the club 15 months ago and his investment strategy has echoes of the methods which made the Turf Moor club a Premier League side for seven out of eight years. Manager Steve Cotterill, quickly installed by Garlick, was briefly with him at Burnley. 

Cheltenham fans arrive at the ground with their side riding high, fifth in League Two

Halifax fans cheer on their side but their Cup run is over – they travel to Kidderminster next Saturday in the National League

Mike Garlick bought Cheltenham last year and quickly installed Cotterill as manager

There’s an air of optimism around the place, as head groundsman Paul Gibson attends to some stray grass cuttings with a leaf blower and husband and wife team Gerry and Hannah Oldham sort the kit. 

The ground staff, with their distinctive West Country burr, take enjoyment from several attempts at installing the goalposts before getting them upright. Mascot ‘Whaddney the Robin’ is limbering up for a leisurely lap of the stadium.

Garlick suggests we use Cotterill’s office as a quiet place to talk as the stadium begins to fill up. He tries calling the manager for his consent to do so but Cotterill’s phone rings out in the room.

It turns out Cotterill is receiving calls on his watch. This is a source of some humour as Cotterill eventually barrels into the office, exhibiting his usual energy. The two men clearly get on.

Garlick looks more at home here than at Burnley. He also owns Spanish third-tier side Antequera CF and a club in Gibraltar but yearned for this kind of environment and Cheltenham, tumbling towards the EFL exit last year, badly needed help.

‘I missed English football,’ Garlick says. ‘I thought this was a club where I could make a difference and have some impact. When I came in, we had four points from nine games and were bottom of the league. It was hard work last season, but the fans seem happy for me to be here. 

‘Everyone who comes up to me says “thanks for helping the club,” which is nice. I never quite got that at Burnley to be honest. I’ve probably got more thanks here in 12 months than in 17 years on the board at Burnley. But that’s football isn’t it?!’

There’s been substantial investment in the training ground, a new stadium hospitality lounge, and Cotterill’s contacts have contributed to some eye-catching signings including veteran former Villa forward Andreas Weimann from Rapid Vienna.

Halifax start the game well, with wingers Ben Tollitt and Connor Douglas both flying and Conor Carty, the Irish forward who has been a revelation this season, ready to receive. Twice, they go close in the early stages. But Cotterill has a very uncomplicated route-one method in place and whip-fast striker Kirsten Otchere, on loan from Leicester City, looks lethal.

Will Flint’s string of fine interventions for Halifax is matched by the excellence of goalkeeper True Grant but Otchere crosses from the left for Jake Evans to score, left-footed. 

This time McGrath does change things, adjusting the defensive line to quell Otchere’s threat after half time. Cotterill, whose colourful touchline antics include shoving his full-back out of the way when he blocks his line of view, grows concerned as Cheltenham’s attacking threat fades and Halifax dominate. 

Carty nets from a Douglas’ crosses but is offside. Halifax lack the moment of class to convert superiority into goals. Substitute George Miller’s late header ended Halifax’s tournament for another year.

Halifax’s Ben Tollitt battles for possession but his side cannot find a way through Cheltenham

McGrath and his Halifax players applaud the travelling supporters after their Cup exit

The Cheltenham fans flood out into suburban Whaddon Road fortified in their belief that something is building. ‘An FA Cup run is great for morale and also a massive contribution to the finances, because we’re hopefully going to strengthen again in January and the summer,’ says Garlick.

A foggy trip up the M6 awaits Halifax, though McGrath brings both a hinterland and perspective to the quest of start filling the famous old Shay Stadium once more and pushing closer to the fourth tier after 24 years away. His father-in-law was the first Briton to climb all the world’s 8,000m mountains, in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges of Nepal, Tibet and Pakistan.

‘He’s one of the best in the world,’ McGrath relates. ‘And however tough it is being a footballer or football manager, you try sitting on the side of Mount Everest for three months.

‘There’s a rumour building in our town that we play good football, that there’s goals to be seen at our stadium and a bunch of talented young men are representing the club in the right way. 

‘We want to get another 800 fans a week through the door and kick the club up the division and into the Football League. We think we can do that.’

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