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It’s OK, it’s nearly over. Soon you’ll no longer have to pretend to be a vaguely socially acceptable human in front of the in-laws or seldom-seen great-aunts as you stumble through yet another game of charades after a pint of sherry-and-Baileys. You can shortly get back to being the real you at the football, politely questioning the parentage of the person in black wandering around aimlessly in the middle of the pitch, and suggesting that the eleven people in red who purport to be full-time actual professional footballers are stealing a living. Yes folks, it’s Kidderminster.
Hereford FC host Harriers on Boxing Day in the first of a two-part all-too-familiar Christmas-new year double header against the Worcestershire footballing non-entity that isn’t Worcester City or Redditch whatever-they’re-called. Or Sporting Bromsgrove. Or Bromsgrove Sporting.
Hereford some time ago went very wrong due to injuries, illness and who knows what else, before winter kicked in causing mass postponements, denying them the opportunity to turn decent if ultimately losing performances into something more fruitful. However, if you think that’s bad, and it has been, Kidderminster Harriers are a full-time football club but sit just three places and three points above Hereford, having played two games more to get there. They average the same gate as Hereford over the course of the season so far, so considering that full-time status and Hereford’s recent announcement of a £200k loss last year Harriers are presumably haemorrhaging at least that money to stand still, or in fact to regress. If they’re not, it would be usefully instructive to find out how. Perhaps manager Russ Penn lives on a z-bed in the Aggborough dressing room.
Tom Owen-Evans hasn’t featured too much for the club he left Edgar Street for in summer. A starter early in the season, he picked up an injury in training and was then peripheral. He did play in the midweek Trophy win-on-penalties at Fylde, and in fact according to the Harriers website he somehow managed to come on as a 71st minute substitute for himself, which is some achievement. I’d have him back in a heartbeat, but I know many wouldn’t.
Ex-Bull loanee Reiss McNally, who looked good when at Hereford, should play in central defence, whereas Alex Penny and Nat Knight-Percival should miss out injured, while striker and top scorer Ethan Freemantle recently suffered concussion and is presumably still under the doctor (one for you there fans of western Australian meteorological/cricketing conditions). Good players like Amari Morgan-Smith and Ashley Hemmings simply don’t seem to have got going this season.
A supporter of another National League North club who recently played Harriers suggested to me that they’re “…remarkably poor (although another four-letter word was used here rather than ‘poor’), with a massive chip on their shoulder; non-league tika-taka wannabes.” I obviously can’t guarantee the accuracy of that report, although its author is generally a shrewd observer of the beautiful game, and indeed the slightly less beautiful version of it played in the NLN, but even if there’s a kernel of truth in it it’s encouraging.
Kiddy have ‘battled through a near-unprecedented period of illness and injury’ which is apparently being used as an excuse for them being down in the doldrums with Hereford FC so far this season. Well, it’s actually not that unprecedented given how things have been at Edgar Street, with Josh Gowling using an astonishing number of players so far already (is it 40 yet?). Admittedly a very few have been brought in to cover summer signings who have proved to be not really good enough, which is arguably a bit of an indictment on the summer recruitment programme, but mostly it’s been to cover injuries to decent players, the extent of which couldn’t have been legislated for, especially in goal.
There’s not a huge amount to say regarding the Bulls squad given that there hasn’t been a game for ages, other than that hopefully the fit players will be nicely rested and the unfit ones will have become fit again. I seem to have said this a lot lately, but it would be nice to see some positivity. Gowling has two very good full backs at his disposal in Jack Evans and Thierry Latty-Fairweather, and given that the Bulls are at home and the opposition are on the ropes it would be good if he had the courage to use them in an attacking wing-back capacity as much as possible in support of the pacy and skillful youngsters who will be buzzing around Ty Barnett in the final third. Some post-Christmas entertainment rather than a dour we-must-not-lose conservative approach would be appreciated I’m sure by the Edgar Street faithful, and that seems to be what Gowling is promising now that he has players back fit.
Incidentally, that pacy buzziness is precisely the sort of approach that causes oil tanker and ex-Bull Krystian Pearce, now plodding around at the back for Harriers, to panic, concede penalties and get sent off.
One thing that is worth pointing out is that with this being, uniquely in the NLN in recent years, a 46-game season, you’d be lucky to sneak into the play-offs with fewer than 70 points. Hereford would therefore need 45 points from 26 games from here on in. On current form that looks massively unlikely, but if somehow it is achieved the next few months will be a lot of fun. If it’s not achieved, well, it’s another season of standing still.
One gets the impression that Kidderminster are nervous wrecks afraid of their own shadows given how the first half of their season has played out. An early Bulls goal and a bit of intimidatory noise from the crowd, which may not be quite as bumper as it should be after that recent dismal run, should push them over the edge here. The pace, skill and trickery of McLean, Rus and Holmes coupled with the presence of Barnett could be enough to get 2023 off to a bright start a few days early, before 2023 officially starts with a New Year’s Day trip to Aggborough for the return leg, followed by something of a make-or-break fixture situation in January. By February the Bulls will be either back on course or irretrievably cast adrift.
COYW