.png)
Back to FA Cup duty for Hereford FC this weekend, and these days, all of a sudden, that means an away match. Bishops Stortford is the destination, and the Hertfordshire outfit are relatively familiar foes after spending a solitary season in the National League North last year.
The Bulls did the double over the Blues in that season, with the latter never really finding a way to become competitive at step 2. Given that the double was also done in the season Hereford whizzed past them going through the easy leagues, there’s a four-game 100% win record to build on here.
The poetically named Research and Development Advisors UK Stadium is the venue, and if that alone doesn’t evoke the romance of this venerable competition there’s something wrong with your romance button. If you’re flying from Shobdon, the ground is handily located next to Stansted.
There are injuries, aches and pains galore for the Hereford squad at the moment, but that patched up squad put in a much-improved home performance last Saturday against Kings Lynn, whether through a desire to put recent home performances behind them or a more-or-less enforced return to a 4-4-2 formation, or a combination of the two. Or something else entirely. At least, for the sake of the walking wounded, the season has now bedded in to a saner one-game-a-week routine, with the next Tuesday night home game scheduled for Bonfire Night, when hopefully there will be fireworks against Oxford (sorry). That’s assuming this one isn’t drawn.
Cowley, Babos, Skinner and Bitemo will miss out injured here. Preston, Howkins, Tilt, Ceesay and Rose have been nursing various niggles but Paul Caddis suggested in the week that they may be approaching full fitness now. Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb were firemen in Trumpton.
Of those who have avoided the worst of the rough and tumble of life in the National League North, Sammy Robinson and Tate Campbell continue to grow agreeably into the season as reliably classy performers. If only they could be put on the sort of multi-season contracts Brackley chuck around like confetti.
Caddis continues to insist that any loanees brought in to plug holes have to be the right fit to plug those holes, much like a plug. This strikes me as eminently sensible. One or two of Josh Gowling’s loanees were undeniably useful and brought something to ‘the group’, but 37 or so didn’t.
September has seen the Bulls score just two goals in five games, a barren spell which followed an August goal glut. It would be good to address that here, but no-one will be complaining too much if another gritty 1-0 away win, like at Ilkeston in the last round, sees the club safely into the hat for the chance of a match against one of the National League’s glamour clubs, one of the names synonymous throughout the land with footballing excellence and sexiness, like Tamworth.
In the last round, the Blues beat higher-graded Hemel Hempstead 1-0 away in a Hertfordshire local derby to set Herts hearts racing, an 89th minute winner settling matters in favour of the underdogs.
On Saturday they won 3-1 at home to Stourbridge in the Southern League Premier Central, where they now conduct their league business. They’re certainly not dominating down there like a newly relegated big fish in a small pond, but they have won three of their five home games. Their fallibility was exposed on Tuesday though as they went down 2-1 at home to Biggleswade who, before that win, had been joint bottom. That loss left the Blues in eighth place, two points shy of the play-offs, and is form that suggests that this tie is very much a winnable one for the visitors.
They’re not conspicuously prolific scorers, but they recently permanently signed striker Jack Roberts from Braintree after he impressed on loan. If they see him as the key to the club scoring more, it’s a lot of responsibility to put on a 19-year-old’s shoulders. Talking of which, midfielder Olumide Oluwatimilehim hopefully has broad shoulders to accommodate the name on the back of his shirt.
Fellow midfielder Anthony Church returned to the club this week for a third stint, having played 190 games for the Blues and been influential in their promotion to the National League North. Now 37, his knees have presumably seen better days.
It’s £5k to the winner here, which may just about cover the purchase of a bigger club treatment table, or maybe even one of those tables that has a sliding out bit to make it bigger in emergency situations such as the present one.
It’s not often that a 0-0 can be a positive catalyst, but that was a solid one last Saturday. Building on that here with a commanding performance will not only result in progression to the next round - it’ll also increase confidence levels for what’s to come. It’s three consecutive league games against top six sides after this. Things are starting to get real, ladies and gentlemen.
COYW