Coming Home

Guest Columnist Harwood Bull was at Edgar Street last Saturday.
 
Saturday 12th March 2016 felt like a homecoming for me as until then I hadn’t stood on the Meadow End to watch a game of football for about two years. As a resident of Lancashire I don’t get to Hereford very much these days. However, having seen how far some travel to watch the Bulls I realised that my reasons are a bit feeble so I thought I’d better get myself down there to see the Salisbury game.

There was a time when I thought that I would probably never see a game at Edgar Street again. I expect many others felt the same. What a delight therefore, to see the crowd and feel the atmosphere on Saturday. It’s fair to say, on that basis, that the current board are getting things right. I know that the ownership model hasn’t fundamentally changed: the club isn’t owned by THE fans, but it is owned by people who ARE fans. There still seems to be some controversy about this, if you can call a handful of people bitching at each other on the forums controversial, but my view is that it needed decisive action to get a new club off the ground quickly, and if Hale and the others hadn’t done what they did we would still be locked in interminable constitutional debates rather than watching a successful football team.

On to the game. The first half was full of incident, if not a lot of football. I didn’t care, I was just happy to be there. Within 2 minutes Birch was having his head bandaged following a dangerously high boot. 10 minutes later the Salisbury centre back was stretchered off having done his shoulder following an awkward fall. A series of dubious refereeing decisions then took place, before a bizarre incident happened.

The ball was crossed into the Salisbury area, and Haysham leapt and glanced the ball into the net. Unfortunately he used his hand, not his head, which was blatantly obvious to all except the ref and his assistant. For a few seconds the ‘goal’ stood, the Bulls celebrated wildly in front of the Meadow End, and the Salisbury players and management understandably went ballistic. A number surrounded Haysham, gently pointing out that this wasn’t very sporting of you, old chap. Eventually the ref consulted with his assistant and reversed the decision, disallowed the goal, and booked Haysham for being a cad. Exactly the right decision, it must be said, but as neither official saw the handball in the first place, I don’t know what they said to each other to change their minds.

It wasn’t quite “the Hand of God”, but the rest of the first half was dull by comparison.

In the second, Bundu put us one up with a header, we hit the bar and later Horsell made a good reaction save to keep us ahead. We could have done with another goal but it never looked like happening. Mills came on near the end, but to be honest, too late to make much difference.

So effectively we’re one up at half time and 90 minutes from Wembley, the closest we’re ever likely to be in my lifetime. It was a really good day, and I’ve just seen the news that Alvechurch lost tonight. It’s still all on! Come on you whites!

---