After ignominiously getting
dumped out of the Cup by Tamworth on Tuesday, Hereford FC can quickly bounce
back with a continuation of their promising league form as they travel to
Bradford for a match against struggling Park Avenue on Saturday at the Horsfall
Stadium, kick off 3pm.
Reece Styche, Raheem Hanley and
Rowan Liburd are somewhat irritatingly still abroad, involved in matches
against the likes of French Guyana, Belize and whoever’s next in line to give
Gibraltar a seeing to. Really tiresome.
The rest of the squad, other
than mid- to long-term absentees Danny Greenslade, Alex Bray and Jared
Hodgkiss, are presumably available and keen to make amends for the Cup exit,
although with Mike Symons looking like he needed a mobility scooter to get him
from the centre circle to the penalty area to take his spot-kick on Tuesday, he
could probably do with a rest. Admittedly that would just leave Brad
Ash as the only available ‘striker’, but perhaps that tells its own story.
After 12 games, the league
table shouldn’t be telling too many lies, but there’s still a niggling feeling,
exacerbated by an inability to score against Tamworth in 210 minutes of
football, that the Bulls could be slightly flattered by their current sixth
position. Scrappy wins over some of the strugglers, such as those against Blyth
and Kettering, have been interspersed with men-against-boys thumping defeats to
some of the stronger teams, such as Chester and Kings Lynn. However,
statistically at least, the current run of form is good. Hereford come into
this match with three league wins on the bounce. The forthcoming
matches against Alfreton, Darlington and particularly York should tell us more
about Russell Slade’s impact to date than another scrappy win in this one, as
welcome as that would be of course!
This is another golden
opportunity to harvest points against a club seemingly undergoing a bit of
upheaval behind the scenes, reflected by performances on the pitch. BPA have
lost four of their last five, most recently sharing eight goals with Brackley,
with the word ‘sharing’ used somewhat charitably to describe an 8-0 reverse. Reports
from spies suggest that they’re reasonably capable going forward but pretty
woeful defensively (see 8-0 above). Bradford’s goal difference is ten worse
than even Blyth’s, who sit below them at the bottom of the table.
Whether Hereford’s less than
convincing attacking options can exploit that woefulness remains to be seen,
but usefully Telford have just acquired one of their better players in left
back Riccardo Calder, which could leave them even more exposed at the back.
On the other hand and in stark
contrast, Bradford enjoyed a strong season last term, qualifying for the
play-offs and doing the double over Hereford. Also in the debit column club
talisman Mark Bower recently returned to the club at the managerial helm,
following a period of hiring and firing chaos, and it looks likely that he’ll
bring some new recruits in before this match. Bower previously presided over
three years of steady progress before the recent instability.
Apparently it’s 'Non-League Day'
on Saturday, which encourages the sort of fickle football supporters normally attracted
to the glamour of following clubs who employ stellar international footballers
‘from’ Gibraltar, St Kitts and even Nevis and the like to go to a more
feet-on-the-ground match. That certainly starts to narrow my options, and
possibly leaves me in Orleton, or, if that’s too lah-di-dah metropolitan elite,
Bircher Common. Interesting.
If Slade can address some of
the current weaknesses in the squad, perhaps by somehow getting more bang for
his buck from the strikers already on the books or by bringing someone new in,
whilst hoping that at the same time results if not performances remain
positive, the play-offs remain within reach. If this winning run continues
surely confidence and performances will naturally follow, and the three or four
currently consistent stand-out players will grow to eight or nine? Here’s hoping, because the 1200 crowd on Tuesday should be a warning sign to the board following a series of less-than-entertaining wins, if that doesn't sound too spoilt-brattish.
COYW