Former Sunderland striker Will Harris got the only goal of the game as FC Halifax Town claimed a win at Hartlepool United on Saturday.

Former Sunderland youngster Will Harris has admitted his season ‘couldn’t have gone much better’ after he grabbed the only goal of FC Halifax Town’s win at Hartlepool United.

The Academy of Light product has experienced mixed fortunes since he initially left his boyhood club to join Gateshead in 2022 as he endured a frustrating spell at the International Stadium. An upturn in form at Spennymoor Town helped Harris land a move to FC Halifax Town last summer and he has enjoyed the best goalscoring season of his career to help fire the Shaymen into contention for a top seven finish in the National League.

The 25-year-old’s took his seasonal tally to 24 when he got the only goal of the game at the Prestige Group Stadium on Saturday as Pools wasted another opportunity to boost their own play-off hopes on their home patch. For Harris, the strike made it 18 goals in his last 21 appearances in all competitions and he now has eight goals in his last ten games after finding the net with an eye-catching effort against Nicky Featherstone’s men.

Speaking after the game, he told The Courier: "I'm buzzing, it couldn't have gone much better. It's just clicked, it's just snowballed. I couldn't have asked for much more. But I wasn't really putting many runs of form together, it was sort of dotted about over the season, and I never scored more than one in a game. They were all scattered about over the season, whereas this season I've scored a few braces and had a hat-trick. This has definitely been my best season, and especially at this level as well, it's the best I've done at this level.

Momentum

Harris, who featured alongside the likes of Anthony Patterson, Bali Mumba and Joe Hugill during his time within Sunderland’s academy set-up, stressed he is not overthinking his current run of form and is solely focused on helping his side in their push to beat Pools to a National League play-off place.

He continued: "I've done that previously where, if I've been on a decent run and I'd scored in the last couple of games, I'd think 'I need to score in the next one' and it doesn't really help because that's all that's on your mind," he said.

"For example, on Saturday, I didn't really have many chances before my goal and I was just thinking 'we need to just nick one as a team here, I'd be happy if any of us got one, we'll get a good result on the road and hopefully build some momentum from that'.

"So I've been going into games just wanting to win rather than score and that's definitely helped us because if you think about hitting the target too much, you over-think it. I'm preparing myself through the week with a lot of finishing practice and stuff like that, but I've always been like that. But it's not putting too much pressure on myself.”

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