Wooooooooooooohooooooooooooooo, at last. Wasn’t that good last weekend?
In terms of anticlimaxes, there’s after the Lord Mayor’s Show and there’s after the Lord Mayor’s Show, and this week it’s like falling over in the gutter and being sick on your trousers having indulged too freely of the Lord Mayor’s hospitality at his show – yes, it’s Guiseley away.
The Lions were reportedly very unlucky to get dumped out of the Cup last weekend at Plough Lane against Wimbledon, so they’re clearly not to be underestimated by a resurgent (is ‘resurgent’ overdoing it?) Hereford.
However, in the league they’ve found life harder, and are only outside the bottom two on goal difference, and because Blyth are in utter freefall. It’s been a while since the Bulls have played a team below them in the league, and they could even be marginal favourites with the bookies here. It really is a golden opportunity to record back-to-back league wins for the first time since 7 March 2020, and, good omen alert, that 7 March win was in another of the urban sprawly bits of wider Leeds, against Farsley Celtic. Another good omen is that Hereford won this fixture 1-0 last season, courtesy of a Lennel John-Lewis penalty.
I seem to have said this a lot recently - Saturday’s hosts don’t score prolifically, but they don’t concede many either. Admittedly they’re no strangers to losing otherwise they wouldn’t be below Hereford in the table, but they tend to lose narrowly. They were rewarded with that FA Cup trip to Plough Lane by beating NLN high-flyers Brackley in the previous round via a replay.
Ex-Bull Andrai Jones is now back at Guiseley, but has barely featured for the Lions so far this season.
By all accounts their record with injuries this season has been as bad as Hereford's if not worse, but they're now virtually back to full strength, and feel that the absences have left them in something of a false position in the table - sound familiar?
They market themselves as a high energy, high intensity, well-organised team. That's usually football-speak for aerial bombardment of course, but at least the Bulls defence will know what to expect, and know that it'll probably be fairly one-dimensional.
Hereford’s win last Saturday wasn’t one you’d see as finally being a definitive turning point, but some encouraging conclusions could be drawn: 1/ Miles Storey looks to be back to the level of fitness he showed in the first match of the season, and as such is a very, very good player at this level; 2/ Krystian Pearce headed a clearance at the very end of the match from the sort of ball over the top that has led to sloppy goals being conceded in the past, and it capped a performance to suggest that he’s precisely what’s been lacking, and that he could make a very big difference; 3/ Ryan Lloyd is arguably as important as both of the aforementioned; 4/ Brandon Hall’s two standout saves meant that the opposition couldn’t shut up shop after half-time two goals to the good.
Patrick Fini continues to impress and to seemingly grow in self-belief, and Ben Pollock looked solid alongside The Chief, who actually really does seem to be widely referred to as ‘The Chief’ to the extent that he must go into the butcher’s and the butcher will say: “Good morning The Chief, usual is it?”
If Harry Pinchard’s still out for this one, an argument could perhaps be made for starting with Maz Kouhyar and pushing Tom Owen Evans out wide, with Ryan McLean kept in reserve as an impact substitute, but what do I know? Nothing really.
Just for a bit of context so as not to get too carried away, the Bulls go into this one having scored the fewest goals of anyone in the National League North. With the festive double-header not too far off, Kidderminster have scored nearly three time as many goals.
However, the luck worm may have turned at last for Hereford, as (whisper it) a draw may have been a fairer result last week, but it’s high time a little luck did favour the Bulls, and hopefully that will be the case in West Yorkshire on Saturday, and returning to God’s ACTUAL Own County with three more points would create enough momentum to make Tuesday’s home match against Blyth a virtual gimme.
Things could suddenly look a whole lot brighter at 10pm on Tuesday. Not literally of course as it’ll be dark.
COYW