Hereford FC make the relatively
short trip to Leamington on Tuesday evening for that most feared of beasts – an
away match. Losses by three clear goals have been a common outcome from the
Bulls’ efforts on the road to date this season, and those losses could easily
have been cricket scores, but for the intervention of lady luck.
Incidentally, what constitutes
a ‘cricket score’ in football? I’d imagine something like eight goals, or
whatever the threshold is to get brackets and the score written as a word on
the Vidiprinter, but if a cricket team scored eight runs it would be
preposterous - they’d be really cross and would lose.
Anyway, hopefully the new
regime will be able to rectify this travel bug tactically somehow starting with
this match, or they could use a new lucky bus or something, anything really.
It has to be said that, at the
moment, as much as one tries to pretend to oneself that this is a squad full of
potential poised to burst into life and take the National League North by the
scruff of the neck, the actual performances from that squad deliver a jolt of
stark reality every time.
However, an ability to ‘win
ugly’ is, I suppose, not to be sniffed at, and is preferable to losing prettily,
whatever the purists may say, and consecutive win number three was chalked up
on Saturday against a poor Kettering side who were at times allowed to look
good. As a Bulls supporter, you’d be a bit nutty to criticise a three-match
winning run, but it has been pretty unconvincing at times, and usually somewhat
laboured. There was, in truth, little between Hereford and Kettering, which is
a concern.
That’s not to deny that the
players have put a shift in to win those three matches, but they’ve also
benefited from the rub of the green recently, and that never lasts forever.
Indeed it usually lasts until the next away match, and, without wishing to bang
on about it, away matches are a problem. OK, Chester are going to be there or
thereabouts this season, so even though the Bulls got thumped at the
Deva-or-whatever, that match was always going to be a tricky one,
but being so poor that they looked third best in a two-horse race away against
both Kings Lynn and Guiseley isn’t a good look for a club with a playing budget
which dwarfs that of those clubs.
The string of away matches that
start with this one will give everyone a better indication of the impact
Russell Slade has made since coming in, and if he can instill some steel in the
team, particularly at the back where both Josh Gowling and Jordan Cullinane-Liburd
have too often this season looked like they’ve been thinking about where to go
for a pint after the match, or a fruit juice in Gowling’s case, rather than
defending, those away trouncings may be a thing of the past.
However, another loss in this one,
particularly another hefty one, would undo all the hard work put in at home
recently and give everyone a dose of cold, hard reality, which tastes even
worse than that pink medicine from the 1970s. Despite a relatively lofty league
position thanks to those consecutive home league wins, supporters will be
approaching the match with fingers crossed rather than with confidence coursing
through their veins.
One force for good continues
to be Jordan Nicholson, who carried his fine form into the Kettering match, and
he’ll presumably be flying for this one too. Several others are performing
solidly, but you’d be pushing the boat out to go further than that in terms of
damning them with faint praise, which is a bit of a shame.
The Brakes are busy doing what
they did last season, bobbling along in mid-table minding their own business,
not bothering anyone else unduly, occasionally springing a surprise like
Saturday’s 3-3 draw at Chester, but there for the taking by clubs with
ambitions to progress up the pyramid, clubs with healthy fanbases, clubs from
cities without bypasses, clubs with floodlights so old they’re powered by
candles, clubs like ours.
THIS one will be total
football; everything clicks, goals galore, clean sheet, three more points, and then
I’ll stop being such a grouch.