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Mark Jones continues his look at Hereford’s rivals in the National League North, with the 2024/25 season just around the corner...
Darlington
Josh Gowling looked like he was the right man to get the Quakers out of the National League North last season, but the route he was taking suggested that he was holding his map upside down.
The job that Steve Watson did in steering the club to safety in the latter part of the season from a seemingly hopeless position would suggest that Darlo will be back at the right end of the table again this season.
Their annual squad builder is becoming the stuff of legend, such is the amount of money it raises each year. The £162k raised last pre-season for their relegation push has been smashed this time, with £190k donated by fans to the cause.
Versatile and influential ex-Kidderminster player Joe Leesley comes in, joined by forward Jack Maskell, only 19 but full of potential having scored 26 in 36 appearances lower down in his fledgling career so far.
Farsley Celtic
The enthusiasm of chairman Paul Barthorpe is utterly infectious, and just makes you want them to stay up each season.
Celtic are having a new artificial pitch installed at The Citadel, so their August games will all be played away from home while the work is carried out.
Midfielder Danny Greenfield, ever-present with Spennymoor last season, and ex-Bradford striker Dylan Youmbi bolster Clayton Donaldson’s ranks, among a number of other new arrivals, many of whom are youngsters from a lower level. Some of those youngsters look very young indeed, to the extent that I’ve probably got things at the bottom of my freezer older than them.
Ex-Villa youth striker DJ Campton-Sturridge comes in up top, apparently boasting blistering pace and a keen eye for goal.
You’d imagine they’ll be bottom half again this time, but you’d be a brave punter to back them to go down, and you’d have to have a heart of stone to wish it given the bonkers and fevered passion of the chairman for his club.
Kidderminster
One season up in the rarified air of the National League then for our neighbours before a prompt return to the NLN. Manager Phil Brown is supported by director of football Dean Holdsworth and assistant manager Neil Macdonald, along with a ‘senior therapist’ and ‘head of performance analysis’, among others. All this suggests a budget some considerable way north of Hereford’s.
It’ll be just the one festive season game against Harriers this time as the rules have changed for some reason too dull for me to recall. That game will be at Edgar Street on Boxing Day, with the reverse fixture at Aggborough being the penultimate game of the season, which could be quite tasty if both clubs still have something interesting to play for.
Winger Maliq Cadogan comes in on loan until January from Swansea, and striker Joe Foulkes returns. He left Walsall at the end of last season, and knows Kiddy well having had two loan spells at the club.
Ex-Wolves and Brum midfielder David Davies looks like a classy addition, although he hasn’t played much football in recent seasons, and at 33 is old enough to be the father of most of Farsley’s new players.
As ever, the
two-way conveyor belt between Aggborough and Edgar Street has been active over
the summer, with Paul Downing and (indirectly) Maz Kouhyar going the wrong way
and Matt Preston and Sammy Robinson coming across to civilisation.
Kings Lynn Town
The Linnets, along with Darlington, looked at one point last season like hugely unlikely relegation certainties before belatedly getting their act together. It was a marked deterioration given that the season before they were one of only three clubs that demonstrated any sort of quality or consistency. A policy last season of remaining full-time but seemingly using young full-timers to keep costs down wasn’t conspicuously successful. Alan Hansen may have been wrong in suggesting that you don’t win anything with kids at elite level, but at this level, and in the NLN specifically, it’s true – you ideally need a spine of players who look like they’ve done a considerable amount of time in prison for something utterly evil.
Their marquee signing big news is that Gold Amatayo is back from Kidderminster. It didn’t quite work out for him at the level above for either Harriers or Fylde, but the Swiss martial arts exponent scored 31 in 79 appearances in his last spell with Kings Lynn.
Leamington
They’ll come for a 0-0 draw and do whatever it takes to get it. In fairness, they’re very good at it, and manager Paul Holleran masterminded a fairly typical Leamington masterclass in edging Telford out of the Southern League Central play-off final which saw them promoted back to the NLN after just one season away. They finished 11 points behind Telford and 15 behind champions Needham Market, so by that reckoning they’ve got a lot to do to avoid the drop this season, and they’ll have to do it without the services of Ty Barnett, who left the club in the summer.
Marine
One of THE archetypal non-League legends, who I associate inextricably with the old blue BBC vidiprinter and Frank Bough and FA Cup exploits. Marine have washed up in the National League North having upset the odds in beating Macclesfield in the Northern Premier play-offs last season.
Like Farsley, a club seemingly taking a bit of a punt on young arrivals from lower down the pyramid.
Their manager is ex-Chester boss Neil Young and their chairman is Paul Leary, presumably not the Paul Leary who played guitar in a way no-one has before or since for Texan legends the Butthole Surfers. Although you never know…