.png)
Hereford FC travel cross-country on Tuesday evening as their two-games-a-week hectic schedule continues. The destination is Needham Market, a destination they were some considerable way to arriving at in early December before the game was called off.
It's not often that you can go from bottom of the table to safety in one fell swoop, but Needham managed it on Saturday with a 6-1 dismantling of Farsley away from home. Such is the tightness of the National League North relegation battle at the moment that they’re now fifth from bottom. 6-1 away would normally be a fairly intimidating result ahead of a game against the team who won 6-1, but it’s difficult to gauge just how much value there is to cricket scores against Farsley at the moment, with Celtic in utter turmoil.
That, coupled with the Suffolk side’s awful home record (they’ve won just two of 14 games at ‘The Ecologic Stadium Bloomfields’ scoring a paltry 11 goals in the process) and Hereford’s preference seemingly for smash and grabs away from home, and this looks absolutely winnable for the Bulls. Hereford fans have left Edgar Street this season too often feeling exasperated, understandably, but compared to the Needham Market faithful we’ve got off lightly.
Their record over the last five games has been WLWLW, so hopefully that pattern will continue, and two of those three wins were against Warrington and Farsley, two sides who have gone very wrong indeed.
In September, the Marketmen came to Edgar Street and did a right old job on a Bulls side that had started the season in fairly brittle fashion in front of their own fans, a situation that hasn’t changed particularly. The East Anglians emerged as 1-0 winners but it could easily have been 5-0. 2430 watched that game, but it’s going to be closer to 243 for this one.
Generally however, Needham have struggled since promotion, hence finding themselves bottom prior to Saturday’s win, lending further evidence to the suggestion that the National League North takes no prisoners.
Playmaker Tevan Allen is very much their ‘one to watch’, with all of their creativity flowing through him. Left winger Iffy Allen is on loan from National League South club St Albans for the rest of the season, and scored a couple against Farsley on Saturday. He hasn’t been notably prolific at any of the 20 clubs he’s played for over the last 12 years (some achievement, that), although the likes of Wrexham and Yeovil must have seen something in him to give him a go.
The Bulls’ no-show against Spennymoor on Saturday was hopefully bad enough to trigger another three-game winning run as a reaction, which is really the only way the club is going to have a chance of clinging on to the play-off chasers given its tendency to throw in flat performances at regular intervals.
To be overrun by a visiting side with little left to play for in the league this season and one eye on the Trophy, when a win for the hosts would have kept them bang in contention for the play-offs, is a worrying indication that coming up just short again could be the most likely outcome to 2024/25.
Again it was hard to ascertain where the performance came from. Tiredness perhaps, but if that was in evidence on Thursday during training Paul Caddis surely would have brought fresh legs in to start the game rather than going with an unchanged side. I seem to say this every week, but the honesty Caddis shows in admitting that he’s as nonplussed as everyone else by these regular flat performances is to be admired. It may be that a smattering of players are needed to bolster the squad next season who aren’t phased by playing in front of a crowd, if indeed that’s a contributory factor.
Hopefully Levi Andoh or even Aaron Skinner will slot in at right back here, freeing Sammy Robinson up to move into midfield, and giving Tate Campbell a bit more licence to push forward. One of the midfielders will also have to keep Tevan Allen on a tight rein.
There’s a full programme of NLN games on Tuesday night, and many of the top-half clubs are playing each other, so ideally they’ll all end as draws and a Hereford win will edge them back to within a whisker of the play-off places. Anything other than a win would leave only die-hard optimists bullieving in the chance of play-off participation at the end of the season, so this is a big one.
Finally a quick word on the excellent London Bulls/Rob Purdie interview recently put out – firstly, if Purds ever manages the club I’m not sure how he’d limit his half-time team talk to 15 minutes, and secondly thank goodness the streaker who invaded halfway through part 2 of the podcast kept his clothes on.
COYW