Another blank weekend?

Having been without sparks for the last twelve hours and under a foot of snow in my neck of the woods, unless things are markedly different in HR1 Hereford FC’s scheduled hosting of AFC Fylde this Saturday in the FA Trophy looks like it will be another game to fall victim to the weather.

At this rate, the fixture pile-up is becoming something that could eventually lead to three games having to be played over the course of some weeks in spring to enable the Bulls to complete their season, and that would be tough on part-time players, not to say impossible in some cases.

But let’s just pretend that there’s a chance that this one will go ahead somehow…

The visitors, relegated to this level last season, have bounced back very well, and sit in second position in the National League North table. Like South Shields, they’re a full-time club with financial backing that really should see them competitive in the division above.

The Coasters are managed by Craig Mahon, and the last time he was seen at Edgar Street he was walking down the tunnel following a red card for Curzon Ashton last season. Mahon has started well at the club, but he’ll need to continue to build on that success as the club tends to get through one manager a year.

Centre forward Danny Ormerod has 16 league goals this season in 21 appearances, which isn’t bad for a 19-year-old. He’s contracted to the club for two years, on full-time terms of course, with the option of a third. That just illustrates the difference in how these two clubs are run.

That goal return isn’t quite on a par with ex-Merthyr striker Ricardo Rees, who had scored as many goals as the whole Hereford squad combined this season before departing for the sunlit uplands of the Stroud valleys, but it’s a pretty healthy return.

Jon Ustabasi will be familiar to Bulls fans from his time as a stand-out performer with Chorley, and winger Luca Thomas came through the ranks at Leeds and weighs in with goals and assists aplenty.

In October, when these sides met in Lancashire, Hereford put in one of their best performances of the season and were somewhat robbed in coming away empty-handed following a 2-1 loss, the aforementioned Ustabasi getting the winner in the 94^th minute.

With a variety of players coming and going recently, in addition to the glut of postponements, this season is starting to feel like two mini-seasons. Everyone connected with the Bulls will be fervently hoping that mini-season 2 is a significant improvement on mini-season 1, and if this game represents the start of that second phase what better way to kick it off than to beat a form team and progress to the last 16 in the Trophy?

New recruits Justin Donawa and Keziah Martin should start here, with Donawa offering the width that’s no longer offered by Sam Osborne or Omari Sterling-James, and Martin providing what will hopefully be an influential presence in the middle of the park.

It was heartening that Sam Osborne was so keen to stay at the club even though a deal couldn’t be done to make that happen. Despite things not going to plan this season so far, it does suggest that Paul Caddis has an excellent working relationship with his players and that the dressing room is a happy one given that Osborne wanted to remain in it. It will of course also be a dressing room full of players frustrated that they’re not winning football matches. That’s not been made any easier recently by not actually playing any football matches of course.

That togetherness does at least give some sort of positive base from which to launch mini-season 2, but something that would add to that positivity would be a goalscoring striker looking for a happy dressing room in which to feel at home.

£5250 goes to the winners here, which would presumably cover Ormerod’s goal bonus. Let’s hope he doesn’t qualify for it. As with the previous round, it’s straight to pens if the sides are tied after 90 minutes, which of course went very well against Radcliffe.

Given that it never rains in East Anglia, next weekend’s game at Kings Lynn should be on, and if so will be the first league game for Hereford in well over half a month. With the Linnets having a thoroughly average season, it’s a great opportunity for the Bulls to make amends for that horrible home defeat to them in August, and to finally start climbing the table.

COYW