A midweek late-autumn treat! It’s Hereford FC vs Blyth Spartans at Edgar Street.
(The rest of this isn’t going to rhyme by the way unless I get very, very lucky).
Talking of luck, luckily for the visitors they weren’t at home on Saturday, otherwise they would have had to leave at half-time to make it to Appleland for 7:45pm on Tuesday. Instead they were away at Kettering, and it’s not often that finding yourself in Kettering can be considered lucky. In a footballing rather than geographically-handy-for-Hereford sense, it wasn’t actually lucky for Blyth to play the Poppies anyway, with the northeasterners losing 4-0.
They’ve presumably spent the intervening time acclimatising to southern temperatures in somewhere balmy like Nuneaton rather than going home and coming back. I can’t remember the name of that place in Spain where English footballers have let themselves down repeatedly over the years whilst ‘relaxing’, but I assume it doesn’t resemble Nuneaton too closely. Ah, La Manga – thank you Google.
Anyway, for those of you concerned that Kettering, in comfortably winning that one, may be a tough nut to crack in a fortnight’s time at Edgar Street, fear not – they’re rubbish, it’s just that Blyth are worse.
The original Saturday date for this match was scuppered by the Bulls being on FA Cup duty, and that scheduling alteration really has done the visitors no favours at all given the journey home that awaits them post-match. I remember an evening match a couple of years ago against Gateshead when their right back, in the last minute, basically crossed the ball for Tommy O’Sullivan to score the winner for a Hereford team that frankly needed crosses put in by the opposition defence to stand any chance of scoring a goal. I very much felt for that right back, presumably glared at for a million hours by his teammates on the bus back up north, and then required to go straight to work. It’s really not easy at this level. Hats off to all of them, apart from the Leamington centre forward.
Due to the pandemic, this Edgar Street fixture has only been played once in Hereford’s time in the National League North, and that was the club’s very first match in the division – a convincing 3-0 win on a gorgeous August afternoon (it’s been mostly downhill since). However, the teams have met twice at Blyth, and both times Hereford have come away victorious, so there’s a 100% record to defend here.
Blyth have struggled in the NLN for the last two seasons, and would have been long gone if it wasn’t for the Covid curtailments. However, at the start of this season they behaved very unusually in contriving to win a few matches, but everyone was able to breathe easy again when they reverted to type and started losing every week.
As for Hereford, two wins on the bounce give some cause for optimism at last, and hopefully will result in a 2000+ attendance here, and a dominant home performance by a squad growing in self-belief.
November always looked like it would give the team the chance to turn things round, with plenty of home matches and some cannon-fodderish opposition, but you’ve still got to do the business, and that’s been done so far, including against a decent Chorley side.
Guiseley supporters seemed to believe that the Hereford players were guilty of gamesmanship on Saturday, particularly a scuffing up of the penalty spot prior to the Guiseley player managing, you’d imagine unprecedentedly, to concede a free kick whilst taking the penalty. Obviously no-one wants their side to cheat, but a bit of ‘professionalism’ has arguably been missing so far this season.
With concussion now seemingly treated more seriously than it used to be, there’s presumably some doubt over Miles Storey’s availability here, given his withdrawal in the first half against Guiseley following a clash of heads. This would be a worry in that it removes about 50% of the Bulls’ ability to ‘make something happen’. However, some compensation has arrived in that respect with the return of talented winger Zeli Ismael. With Ryans Lloyd and McLean now also on fire in front of goal, perhaps there’s no cause for concern, but with all due respect to the Ryans they’re not 20-goal-a-season players and that’s something that’s still missing. Perhaps Victor Sodeinde will come good, and it would be handy if Tom Owen-Evans could make some progress on his ten-goals-and-ten-assists personal target for the season in Storey’s absence here. It would be better if Miles was fit and available though, all the same, if only to ensure that the team meets its contractual number-of-tattoos requirement, as per NLN league rules.
It was good to see James Vincent return after injury, coming on as a second-half substitute on Saturday, and there now seems to be a virtually clean bill of health in the Hereford dressing room.
Blyth carry some seriously awful form into this match, having lost eight on the bounce, and their confidence must be utterly shot. Whether they’re hapless enough for one of their players to manage to concede a free kick when taking a penalty remains to be seen. If the Bulls can make it three wins on the bounce here I might actually bring myself to look at the league table for the first time this season afterwards.
COYW