So another week passes serenely by with Hereford FC continuing their unbeaten run, admittedly this time as a result of the wet weather in west Yorkshire.
Tomorrow sees a return to FA Trophy
action at Edgar Street, kick off 3pm, following victory last time against FC
United of Manchester, with the Bulls this time hosting Billericay in the first
round of the competition, presumably meaning that the last round couldn’t
really have been a round at all, merely a bit of a practice match or something.
Stories recently emerging from Essex, or Suffolk or Shropshire or wherever it is,
suggest that the Blues are encountering cashflow problems, with players leaving
en masse. It should be stressed that these suggestions are being strenuously
denied by owner Glenn Tamplin, who claims that the club is just going through
a period of recalibration as they prepare to go full time. These comings and goings will sound very familiar to what’s going on at
Edgar Street to Bulls fans, and our club is apparently rolling in money, so maybe Mr Tamplin’s right in suggesting that it’s nothing to do with cash, merely an
honest attempt to lift his club up the pyramid.
Billericay are second in National
League South, and are therefore enjoying a contrasting first half of the season to Hereford, although the general consensus seems to be
that the southern half of this tier of the pyramid is significantly weaker than
the northern one, so factoring in home advantage you could posit as an argument, if you were almost insanely optimistic or drunk, that the teams look to be reasonably evenly matched, which in
itself is a bit depressing.
There’s no doubt that the recent
upturn in form has lifted some of the gloom around Edgar Street since Pete
Beadle’s sacking, but supporters, and in fairness the new management team, will
be all too aware that jumping for joy at potential false dawns is for fools.
The last gasp win against Alfreton now looks to be a very different beast in
the context of the latter’s utter capitulation next time out at home to
Spennymoor, where they lost 1-7, and, as mentioned above, the FCUM win last
time in the Trophy was a glorified practice match, reflected by the fact that
fewer than 1000 home fans bothered to attend.
A truer test will be the pair of
matches over the festive period against near neighbours Kidderminster Harriers.
Four points from those games and maybe a proper dawn will have risen on the
Bulls' season at last. Anything less and at the very least supporters will be
far from convinced that the management team is taking the club forward to any
significant degree.
On paper, it’s hard to see how
players brought in from struggling Nuneaton and elsewhere, some of whom may or
may not ever be fully fit again, can contribute meaningfully to even as humble
an aspiration as a season of consolidation. However, thinking more positively, picking
up players from struggling clubs to create the right mix as a squad, and
coaching them intelligently, creatively and in a way to suit them individually,
can pay dividends. It’s happened before in my time as a supporter, notably
Newman’s mid-80s team and a couple of GT’s. Admittedly there were no questions
over the state of Michael McIndoe, Ben Smith or Steve Guinan’s knees, but those
players and their ilk were only attainable because of the various question
marks hanging over them in non-knee-related areas (booze, burgers and
high-jinks respectively, from memory). In the right environment who knows who’s
going to thrive, even in the autumn of their careers? How’s that for glass
half-full?
This is increasingly the new
management team’s squad, so they’re now on the hook. Thus far, some tactics and
new players have worked, some haven’t, but there can be no more excuses, particularly for the sort of defensive aberrations that mean it's a constant back-foot battle to stay in a game, let alone win it.
This one looks to be a good test of where the new-look squad is at against decent opposition in a match that's relatively unimportant. A nice
win to kick things on towards the more important business of the Christmas
programme please!
COYW