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Hereford FC travel cross-country this Saturday for a National League North match at Boston.
The Pilgrims have changed gear since changing manager a month ago, with ex-Kettering boss Paul Cox, after seven months in the job, making way for Ian Culverhouse, who also replaced Cox at Kettering. What a merry-go-round it all is.
In a division that really does frequently seem utterly insane, Josh Gowling is one of the few managers to have kept his job a month and a bit into the season. OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but Boston, Gloucester, Spennymoor, Blyth, Fylde (understandably) and Brackley off the top of my head have all wielded the axe already.
As crackers as it all is, Culverhouse has actually triggered an upturn in the Pilgrims’ progress, with the club beating Telford, Farsley and Buxton since his arrival, giving him a 100% record in the league so far.
Saturday’s hosts are still a place below Hereford in the table however, and at the start of the season neither club would have enjoyed the thought of being bottom-halfers at this stage.
Midfielders Jordan Crawford and Scott Pollock have done most of the damage as Boston have picked up momentum, with 11 goals between them this season.
Last season’s top scorer Danny Elliot moved to Boreham Wood in the summer, with the club hoping that Jaanai Gordon would fill the gap. Everyone’s favourite ex-Bull has only managed a solitary goal in the league so far this season, but will presumably be fully wound up for this one after a few interesting interactions with the Edgar Street crowd last May when he visited with Brackley. He did manage a goal as the Pilgrims drew last Saturday at Basford in the Cup, before they were bundled out of the competition on Tuesday in the replay on penalties following a 3-3 draw after extra time. Hopefully all of that will have a tiring effect on them in the latter stages of this encounter.
In contrast to Jaanai, fellow ex-Bull Ben Pollock, who joined Gordon at the club in the summer, will presumably get a better reaction from the Bulls travelling contingent if he plays, although he was reportedly injured in that Cup replay.
A third ex-Bull, defender Jake Wright, isn’t getting any younger at 36 but has been an ever-present for Boston this season. With vast Football League experience from earlier in his career to call upon, Wright played three times for the Bulls in 2020 before the all-too-familiar budgetary pressures got in the way and he had to be released, along with Andrai Jones. Will those elderly legs, and indeed the rest of his body which is presumably the same age as his legs and hopefully connected to them, be able to keep up if they get isolated in a one-on-one with Ryan McLean or Miles Storey?
Classy midfielder Will Atkinson also joined in the summer from Southend – another player who would simply break the budget of Hereford FC, a club, let’s not forget, which is the best supported club in the National League North. The financial disparity between these two clubs looks scarily pronounced - a stark illustration of the difficulty of Josh Gowling’s task in attempting to build a squad to compete with the wealthier clubs in the division, despite that healthy home support and the money it must generate through the turnstiles.
Boston scraped into the play-offs last season, where they lost to York in the final. They’ll be hoping, and are clearly budgeting, for something a lot more convincing this time around.
The Pilgrims are typically no strangers to managing the ref and the clock when it suits them, and Culverhouse’s Kings Lynn were the same, so a bit of gamesmanship will probably rear its ugly head at some point here.
Hereford go into this one four games unbeaten, but that comprises two wins against lower-graded opponents in the Cup, a slightly flattering 3-0 win at home to a Blyth side destined for a long, hard winter, and a dour 0-0 draw with Leamington. However, a decent result here would make that unbeaten run start to look a lot more promising.
With injuries and illnesses still afflicting the squad, bright young prospect Yan Klukowski, absolutely flying now in front of goal, will be banging on Josh Gowling’s door this week pleading for a starting place. Perhaps more realistically, Miles Storey should retain his own starting place after a lively performance last Saturday, capped with a goal. Exciting newcomer Jack Holmes could also start, after missing the Three Bridges game cup-tied.
Ty Barnett will score sooner or later, with sooner being very much the preferred option, and ‘this weekend’ would be absolutely ideal, but fellow striker Aaron Amadi-Holloway’s fitness still seems a bit touch-and-go. Perhaps he could stretch to another bit-part here. Perhaps he can’t stretch at all.
Young Yan got his goal on Saturday by gambling, which is something that perhaps hasn’t been done enough by the Bulls attacking players this season or last. Obviously you don’t want your assistant manager encouraging his players to gamble literally as that would be teaching them bad stuff, but gambling in a metaphorical sense is just what we need to see more of.
Boston won this fixture comfortably last season, outsmarting the visitors and the ref, before Hereford wreaked revenge at home, with Jaanai Gordon influential for the Bulls in that game.
With due respect to those three teams Boston have beaten so far this season, a Hereford side with play-off ambitions and hopefully a growing sense of self-belief should prove to be far stiffer opposition.
COYW