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Following a summer of parched Herefordshire fields and prayers for rain, the new season is upon us, and as has been the case for many of the last one hundred years a football club playing at HR4 9JU can’t compete financially with clubs at the same level.
However, money, even these days, still isn’t the whole story. The soul and the throbbing collective heart of a huge fanbase at this level is something every other club in this division and most in the one above would kill for, and isn’t something you can ever buy. It’s priceless.
When beautiful, impassioned noise envelopes the old and creaky Edgar Street Athletic Ground, noise that’s either imploring the team to score or reflecting the fact that they have done, it’s electric. AFC Fylde don’t get that, newly-minted Buxton don’t get that; we do, and it’s something to be treasured because it’s not a marketable commodity.
This summer’s approach to recruitment at Edgar Street (er, sorry, Edgar Street brought to you by MandM) has been to add new faces to a core group, rather than the club yet again embarking on another process of starting from scratch. This can only be a good thing, and may mean that the points dropped early last season at home to Radcliffe, Peterborough and Needham Market, as an entirely new squad hadn’t quite bedded in, won’t be dropped this season. That alone would reinforce play-off hopes.
Paul Caddis has, despite working to a budget that’s dwarfed by that of a number of other clubs in the National League North, been able to recruit new players from a level higher rather than a level lower, along with some very promising loanees.
Theo Richardson’s signing over the summer was a huge boost, and he’ll arguably earn the club more points than any other player this season, both through unlikely wonder-saves and pinpoint counterattacking distribution.
Caddis has the option of playing three central defenders and two marauding wing-backs this season, but with the Howkins-Preston partnership solid last time a 4-4-2 could be preferred.
In midfield Sam Osborne is a player I’ve mentioned many times here as a dangerous opponent, and for Caddis to have brought him in on a season-long loan is a shrewd move, if a slightly unusual arrangement.
Preston Bitemo looked like a superb prospect before long-term injury, and can now prove that he deserves a starting place in the side if he can stay fit.
Up front, Chris Wreh looks good for 15+ goals, a figure that’s proved elusive to Bulls players over the course of the NLN years to date, but a figure that’s nevertheless relatively modest for strikers in a side looking to get promoted.
Overall the squad looks stronger than last season and will click when it matters, which brings me on to this…
First up this season is a long trip to Spennymoor on Saturday, which may not be ideal but it’s better than a long trip to Spennymoor on a Tuesday in January.
For the hosts, striker Glen Taylor yet again finished as one of the top scorers in the NLN last season, and it says it all about his quality that ‘only’ scoring 18 goals hinted at a slowing down in the striker as he ages.
Graeme Lee took over as manager in January 2024 (making him ‘long-serving’ in NLN managerial terms), and has done a very good job at the club since then.
He’s brought in Gary Madine to partner Taylor, and the much-travelled 6’4” striker looks like an excellent signing if he still has any sort of mobility and appetite left after a long career in the Football League with the likes of Cardiff and the two Sheffield clubs.
He replaces Will Harris who left for Halifax in the summer, with Harris being ten years younger, so perhaps they’re actually weaker as a result. However, Madine will be a physical handful for the Bulls defenders, if nothing else.
There are perhaps two contrasting things to consider here.
On the plus side, Moors are notoriously slow starters. They’ve finished just a point short of the play-offs in the last two seasons, and on goal difference the season before that, which is all-in-all a bit unlucky, but those finishes have come as a result of finally waking up in spring and rocketing up the table from just above the relegation places.
This could therefore arguably be the best time to play them then, although the clubs have coincidentally met twice already on the opening day of an NLN season, both times at Edgar Street with both ending in draws.
On the minus side, however, Moors are staggeringly good at home. They lost just three of 23 games at The Brewery Field last season. They also boast a very strong record in this fixture going back to 2018, and took four points from the two matches against Hereford last season.
Not a straightforward opening assignment then, but a win at one of the league’s true fortresses would suggest that this 2025/26 HFC squad could finally get the club into those elusive play-offs, at the very least.
COYW