The Magpies have been regular play-off participants since promotion to the National League North in 2014, spending one season in the division above in 2019/20.
Last season, some careless Bulls defending let Chorley back into the game at Edgar Street, and the hosts were saved by a last minute goal from Lennel John-Lewis, as the game finished 2-2.
After losing their opening two matches, to Brackley (OK, understandable) and Telford (er, inexplicable), the Magpies have amassed 22 points from ten games. They’ve also conceded just five goals in those ten games, which by my reckoning isn’t many. Their 9-0 dismantling of Gloucester hopefully says more about Gloucester than it does about Chorley. After 12 games they’ve scored almost half their goals for the season in that one match against Gloucester. They’re therefore not prolific, but don’t have to be when they’re such tough nuts to crack defensively. Millenic Alli and Connor Hall have four goals each for the Lancastrians, and ex-Bull Harvey Smith should start in that miserly defence.
Last time out, they came away from Southport with a point from a 0-0 draw that was reportedly and decidedly NOT a classic.
As mentioned in this column prior to the Boston game, November’s fixture list looks potentially kind to Josh Gowling and the squad, in offering plenty of chances to add to the solitary win achieved so far this season, to start moving up the table, and to reassure supporters (among whom concern is understandably growing) that the club is in a false position. If the opportunities on offer this month aren’t turned, in the main, into wins, the false position argument would become virtually impossible to remain on board with. Even starting to put together an unbeaten run largely made up of draws would do very little to alleviate current concerns.
However, looking on the bright side (and I’m determined to make the rest of this upbeat), the Bulls have a game in hand over the clubs above them, and the forthcoming Tuesday matches are both eminently winnable, and six-point returns over the course of one-week periods can change things very quickly. Also, only one club goes down from the National League North this season, although that’s entirely irrelevant given that the Bulls will soon be well away from danger.
New signing Pa Sulay Nije seems to either be something of a Walter Mitty character or has a very creative PA/agent. He redefines the meaning of the phrase ‘could be anything’, and seems to be more one to have a look at in training rather than The Shop’s replacement.
Encouragingly, Krystian Pearce was on the bench at Boston, and presumably could actually start on Saturday, thus hopefully reducing the defence’s tendency to concede soft goals. The team looks to be in dire need of one or two leaders and a bit of nous on the pitch, and hopefully he can offer something in that regard as well as his abilities as a defender. He is, after all, nicknamed ‘The Chief’ not ‘The Shrinking Violet’.
Just as an aside and nothing to do with this match, the recurring issue of the club’s Edgar Street footprint somehow feels like it’s becoming something again. The ground is gradually becoming hemmed in by more modern (and regrettably utterly charmless) variations on the concrete theme (‘Concrete Variations’ was Elgar’s Slipknot period, of course). It’s not hard to imagine local influencers considering the ground to be something of an irritating ragged cuckoo in that nest of new development, in need of removal in the name of progress.
Anyway, summing up in a way more pertinent to this match preview, Chorley won’t give away any freebies, will look to sneak a goal and then cynically work the ref like Leamington did, but if any of their players temporarily blinds any of ours you’d hope the official would send that player off and suggest that football might not be for him. I’ve no idea if Hereford FC have spoken to Leamington subsequent to ‘that incident’, but surely you can’t blind opposing players and receive absolutely no censure, even post-match?
…and I’ve gone completely off topic again.
OK, Hereford to win this one, really good atmosphere, floodlights working as they should, and not on that disco setting like when Lymington came, and here’s hoping that the club’s media people haven’t listened to ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’ before programming the info screen’s brightness level.
We’re up and running from here on in, with that ragged cuckoo of a stadium becoming jam-packed in December as the result of a WWWWWW November form line.
COYW