The Yorkshire-heavy flavour to Hereford FC’s October fixture list continues on Tuesday evening, as Bradford Park Avenue come to Edgar Street for the Bulls’ opening home match of the season. The original attempt at playing the game fell victim to Covid of course, as did last Saturday’s encounter with York, but the weekend before in God’s Own County (yeh right) Josh Gowling’s new squad came away with three points following an excellent and hard-won 1-0 victory against Guiseley, courtesy of a Lenell John-Lewis penalty. The feeling pre-season that this Hereford team might be a good deal harder to beat than has been the case over the last two years was reinforced by a resolute second-half defensive display.
The Shop will presumably be fit for this one even if it’s announced beforehand that his head's fallen off. Eyebrows were raised across the board when it was announced that he’d be starting against Guiseley after reportedly still being definitely sidelined following a knock picked up against Gosport. Josh Gowling was perhaps being just a little economical with the truth, but the news would have caused heads to drop as well as eyebrows to raise in the Guiseley defence. Mind games from a psychology graduate – who’d have thought it? At least he’s putting his education to good use.
Now that another option exists up front in the form of loanee Kelsey Mooney, the starting formation could morph into a more traditional 4-4-2 rather than playing with just one out-and-out striker, as has been the case so far this season, more through necessity than preference. Additional attacking threats to feed that front two, in the shape of in-form Tom Owen-Evans and lively Kyle Finn, give cause for optimism against what looks to be a fairly charitable Bradford defence.
The visitors have started this season in the same manner that they started, middled and finished the last. A 3-1 loss on Saturday at Kettering followed defeat at home to Gateshead. To put that poor start into even more promising perspective for Bulls fans, Kettering had been beaten 3-1 in their only other game so far, and Gateshead have gone on to lose both of their subsequent matches.
Bradford spent the whole of
last season battling with Blyth to be the worst team in the division, with both
clubs anchored to the bottom by some distance. The signs are that they, and
indeed Blyth, will be down there again this term. One rare spark of light for the club recently is that they've done very well out of the 'one-size-doesn't-fit-all' National Lottery allocation farrago, receiving an initial £30k on average crowds of 484 compared to Hereford's £36k/2000+ average attendance payment. It seems to be something of a no-brainer that some nuance will need to be introduced into calculations for subsequent monthly payments across the three divisions of the National League.
As for the Bulls and their season so far, and continuing with the lines-of-form line of reasoning, the 0-0 draw at Southport looks like a better result as time goes by, with the Sandgrounders winning both of their subsequent matches.
This is the sort of match Hereford need to win if they’re to have realistic play-off aspirations in this oddest of seasons. Three points here and things will start to look quite promising in that direction, and give confidence a boost before a tricky looking Halloween trip to Spennymoor on Saturday, another team who have put three past Bradford this season, knocking them out of the Cup in the process.
So, it all points to a home banker here, but any complacency and things could turn nasty. A draw would be unpleasant, but defeat would be a very bitter pill to swallow, and doesn’t bear thinking about. It should be remembered that, despite that awful season BPA suffered in 2019/20, Hereford still contrived to be one of the very few teams not to fill their boots in the two games against them, both in terms of points gained and giving the goal difference column a boost, picking up just one point (a draw at home).
An early goal to settle nerves would perhaps create the opportunity for some of the open, expansive, attacking football that Gowling and others within the camp have stated that they think this team is capable of. Wouldn’t that be nice?
COYW