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Bottom-of-the-table Hereford FC will look to get their season belatedly started with something other than a loss on Tuesday night as they visit free-spending Buxton.
There were no positives at all to take away from Saturday’s home defeat to King’s Lynn, the worst performance I’ve seen since the home loss to Peterborough under Josh Gowling three years ago. There seems to be little point dwelling on it other than to say that it’s glaringly obvious that Paul Caddis knows at least as well as supporters how far off acceptable that was.
The full-time Bucks have become the latest club to attract a speculative benefactor who has started collecting players like they’re Panini stickers.
Last season they employed a squad of talented (and cheap) youngsters and were good to watch. However, they’ve now added to those youngsters with a smattering of familiar faces who will add a bit of nous to that youthful naivity of last season.
Sammy Robinson’s departure from Edgar Street and subsequent resurfacing at Buxton was surprising in that he didn’t resurface somewhere a bit more recognisable as a football club, but the signing is certainly a signal of intent. He does deserve a bigger audience though, as does Tate Campbell, who followed him there. Fellow ex-Bull Ryan McLean has also been lured to the Peak District, presumably solely for the lovely fresh air available at altitude rather than the filthy lucre on offer.
However, because the club itself has had no time to turn overnight into something with a catchment area of well-established support, it would be a surprise if that array of talent attracted a crowd much over a thousand on Tuesday night.
Robinson will presumably be well up for this one, and Hereford may be wise to take measures to get him bubbling over in a way the referee will disapprove of.
Buxton won their opening game at home to Radcliffe but lost on Saturday at Marine, with the hosts knocking the stuffing out of the Bucks with a 98th-minute winner.
Of the Bucks’ ex-Bulls, Robinson played the whole game on Saturday, Campbell played the last 30 minutes, and McLean was an unused substitute. Of the non-ex-Bulls to watch out for, Connor Kirby is their star player and captain and everything goes through him, rather than a long way over him on its way vaguely to an isolated lone striker.
They play on plastic (sensibly given that they also play at altitude so they need a surface that actually allows them to host games in winter) but their record on it last season wasn’t any better than Hereford’s at Edgar Street. They therefore don’t seem to gain an undue advantage from the surface in terms of wins, but they very rarely draw on it.
Last season Andy Williams scored a late winner for the Bulls in this fixture. Will Willo start here?
Long balls on Saturday in the vague direction of an isolated Remaye Campbell, bypassing a theoretically capable midfield pairing of Sam Osborne and Matt Richards, gave the game, or at least Hereford’s contribution to it, the feeling of park football. The same one-dimensional approach here will have the same outcome, so surely a more considered and varied approach will be employed.
Kai Williams looked to have something about him when he came on against Kings Lynn and can hopefully start here. Matt Preston, Theo Richardson and Lawson D’Ath all looked increasingly frustrated as that game degenerated into an inevitable defeat long before the final whistle, but importantly that frustration also suggested that it mattered to them in the same way it mattered to Paul Caddis and the fans.
The manager has been talking regularly for at least six months about the frustrations of being away from home so much and of working with part-time players. He’s always honest, and in that spirit of honesty I’d say that nothing he’s said recently suggests that he’s invested in continuing to spend so long away from his family. As a parent I’m with him entirely. He wants to win football games, but he’d possibly rather win football games in a role with a club less ludicrously distant from his home. Having said that, he’s under contract for the rest of the season and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, in his character to suggest that he won’t do everything to win while he’s here. If Purds ever gets bored of putting out fires and Willo similarly realises that accountancy is a bit dull, there’s a succession path right there.
It's difficult to see how Saturday’s car-crash performance can be turned into glorious victory in such a short space of time, but you never know in football. However, a turnaround will only be achieved if the fans, players and management are in it together. Plus…it’s only mid-August.
Oh, and Harwood Bull, the Bulls News pie-loving northern correspondent, opened his match report of that game last season at Buxton as follows: “At last. The Bulls finally got over their recent goal drought and came home with a win.” You never know…
COYW